


Histories

by quenchycactus



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Fluff, Gay Panic, Historical, Humor, M/M, Romance, Slow Burn, Vignette, cannot stress how much gay panic is in this, idiots in love drinking dumb bitch juice for 6000 years, so much gay panic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-31
Updated: 2019-12-27
Packaged: 2021-01-31 19:40:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 18
Words: 29,964
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21246368
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quenchycactus/pseuds/quenchycactus
Summary: The world was a wide, lonely place.  But it didn’t have to be.
Relationships: Aziraphale & Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 114
Kudos: 104





	1. The Garden, 4004 B.C.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm alive! And I wrote a Thing.
> 
> This fic is an amalgamation of both the book and the show. I started writing it after seeing last year's NYCC panel, but then life + an original project took over. Plus I had run out of ideas.
> 
> So, while a lot of these chapters were written after the show aired and draw on new info from it, there are a few from Before that work only off the book, that may or may not contradict some show happenings. And I was far too happy with them to change them.

Crawly walked around the Garden aimlessly, getting used to having limbs. It’d been about a week since the whole business with the apple, and he’d heard nothing from no one except the angel of the Eastern Gate. Aziraphale, was his name.

Gave away his flaming sword.

It was odd, an angel doing the wrong thing for the right reasons. If it even _ was _ the wrong thing. Who knew anymore, what was going on with the world.

The world was 14 days old, and it was already incredibly confusing. Crawly wasn’t the biggest fan of downstairs, no one _ really _was, but it was a home of sorts, and at the end of the day it was familiar. He wanted to go back.

He stared up at the apple tree and frowned. “Still don’t see what the whole trouble was,” he said to himself.

The ground cracked behind him, a hole opening up. Crawly startled and turned as a voice buzzed and shuddered from the earth.

“_You’ve done _ well_, Crawly,” _ said the voice. _ “Set the whole of humanity on the course for evil.” _

He still wasn’t sure about that, but maybe he just couldn’t see the bigger picture from up here. Crawly bowed, haltingly, because halfway through he realized there was no one around to see him. “Lord Beelzebub. Thank you, I-”

Lord Beelzebub cut him off. “_You’ve done so well, we want you to continue working. _”

“Continue - you mean up here?” Crawly stared at the hole.

“Yes_ up there, where _ else _ ?” _ Lord Beelzebub snapped. “_We have it on good intel that the _ Other Side _ is leaving an operative on Earth as well. Can’t have them _ winning _ now, can we?” _

“No, I suppose not.” His response sounded very much like a child being told he had to go to swimming lessons, except swimming and lessons for it would not be invented for a good long while, and Crawly would be the one to invent them.

“_Don’t sound so _ glum _ , Crawly. Consider this a promotion of sorts. Except not really. You’re only moving up literally. _

“Thank y-” Crawly started, because there was no other acceptable response.

_ “We’ll send you your first assignment shortly,” _Lord Beezlebub cut him off again, and with that, the hole in the earth closed, and Crawly was, once again, alone.

He sat down next to where the hole had been and groaned. He wondered how long he’d be stuck up here. He wondered if he’d be stuck up here alone, suspected very strongly he would be, and he wondered who Heaven’s _ operative _ might be.

He wondered if Aziraphale had left. All of the other guards had.

He also wondered if he could change his name. He’d been thinking, a few times now, that _ Crawly _ just did not suit him, not at all.

________

Aziraphale was sitting on the wall again. He’d sat there several days now, not always in a row, but for the last three he hadn’t moved.

He was the angel of the Eastern Gate, after all. But he wasn’t really sitting to guard. He was sitting to _ think _.

Fourteen days since this Earth had come into being, and it was already incredibly worrisome.

A lot can happen in fourteen days, apparently, and a lot _ had _.

Aziraphale looked out into the desolate world beyond the Garden wall, and worried some more, this time about Adam and Eve and their unborn baby, and he hoped his sword was helping them, at least a little. If it helped them, then it _ couldn’t _ have been a bad thing to do.

Still, God has asked him about it. And Aziraphale had _ lied _. He’d lied to the Almighty, right to Their face.

Aziraphale made an anguished sound, the kind of sound only terribly confused, conflicted people make, and buried his face in his hands.

Maybe the demon had been right. Maybe he _ did _ do the wrong thing.

But, if he’d done the wrong thing, shouldn’t he have fallen by now?

Aziraphale didn’t know. He didn’t think the demon did either. He seemed just as confused by the whole ordeal as Aziraphale.

Crawly, his name was. The snake in the Garden. He wasn’t so much a snake anymore; Aziraphale had seen him walking around. They’d talked a bit, in the last seven days since Adam and Eve left. Crawly was full of questions.

Aziraphale was too, but he would never admit it. And he would never ask. Because that wasn’t his job. His job was to Do God’s Work, as God told him to do it.

Lately, though, it was more Gabriel telling him. Or Michael.

The light behind his hands changed, got infinitely brighter. Aziraphale looked up.

“_ Angel of the Eastern Gate _,” a voice sounding high and mighty and a lot like Gabriel, floated down around him from a hole in the clouds.

“Yes?”

“_ Aziraphale, was it?” _The voice sounded detached and almost bored.

Aziraphale nodded.

“_ Your assigned guard duty is finished. You are no longer needed in the Garden _.”

Aziraphale stood quickly and grinned. He could go _ home _, where things made sense, and where orders weren’t so uncomfortable.

Gabriel laughed, condescendingly. “_ Calm down, I said _ guard _ duty was over. We have another job for you _.”

Aziraphale’s shoulders sagged a bit. “Oh?”

“_ We have word that the _ Other Side _ is keeping an operative there. They already made a mess of things, can’t have them screwing it up even more, right? Where’s the team spirit, Aziraphale?” _

“Oh, um, right! Right. Go, um. Go team!” Aziraphale half-heartedly raised a fist.

“_ Great. That’s what I like to see. So you’ll stay down there, spread Good and Thwart Evil, and all that. We’ll check in soon with an assignment.” _

The light promptly went out, and Aziraphale was alone.

“Is it just me, then?” Aziraphale shouted up at the sky, and got no answer. He suspected it was a _ yes _, anyhow.

He sank back down to sit on the wall, and buried his face in his hands again. He knew, somehow, that the Earth was not planning to get any _ less _ confusing, and he now had to deal with it, constantly, and all by himself.

While _ thwarting evil _.

He wondered who the _ operative _ would be. He wondered if he’d _ always _ be going it alone, or if reinforcements would ever lend a hand. He wondered if this was, maybe, a shift job, and he’d get to leave eventually. And he wondered what Crawly was doing, somewhere in the Garden below, if _ he _ had been allowed to go home.

Aziraphale sat on the wall, while Crawly, right now known in his head as Wanting-To-Change-My-Name-But-Lacking-Ideas, sat beneath the apple tree. They looked up at the empty sky and _ wondered _, and tried to come to terms with the fact that this confusing, new place was where they were going to be, for the foreseeable future.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic is Completely Finished! So there will be no abandonment. Posting schedule should be Wednesdays and Fridays each week.


	2. Mesopotamia, 2200s B.C.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First posting means two chapters!
> 
> Also, my friend told me he's tweeting my fic to Michael Sheen so, Mr. Sheen, if you're out there, this is for you, and also. I am screaming.

Crawly had not been back in Mesopotamia long. It was like this: he’d leave for a while, and come back, and leave again, and so on. He kept getting messages about it, because while there were plenty of goings-on all over the world, there seemed to be a  _ lot _ centered right here, and they seemed mostly to be direct action straight from the Almighty.

Only  _ here _ , though, which Crawly found strange. Whole wide world full of people, and God picked this spot to keep interfering.

As the only representative of Hell on Earth, Hell felt Crawly should at least be present. They weren’t always sure what he should be  _ doing _ , exactly, but his presence, they felt, was a must.

In case he should see something, Crawly guessed. Come up with an idea. Hell was shockingly bad at creative ideas, Crawly was very quickly learning, compared to humans.

Most of the time Crawly wasn’t much better. He was improving, sure, but there have been plenty of instruction-less, mandated visits in recent years, in which he had no ideas of his own, and ended up wandering around for a while before going somewhere else.

This trip seemed much the same.  _ Look out,  _ they’d told him,  _ Heavenly things are afoot _ . And they said  _ Heavenly _ like the curse it was, and gave him no further details.

He was currently getting in a good bit of wandering, looking vaguely around for whatever it was they had been talking about, when he heard a lot of frantic shouting. It was coming from a nearby small settlement just over the hill.

Ah, that must be it.

Crawly clambered up the sandy incline and tripped. A snake slithered by with ease. Crawly hissed at it.

When he reached the top and started to haphazardly slide down a little ways towards the shouting, and the stone buildings that had come into view, he noticed someone sitting near the top of the incline, watching.

It was the angel. Aziraphale.

They’d run into each other a few times, now, since leaving the Garden. He was, by definition, the Enemy, but he always talked to Crawly whenever they saw each other.

He made his way over, with some difficulty, feet plodding and sinking into the sand.

Aziraphale looked up when his shadow descended over him. He looked somewhat alarmed.

“Hello Aziraphale,” Crawly said.

“Crawly?”

Crawly frowned. He was still working on changing his name. Currently he was trying out  _ Crowley _ , but he hadn't settled on it.

He decided not to mention it yet.

He pointed at the people below. “What’s going on down there?”

Aziraphale adjusted his robe and sat up a bit straighter. “Oh, well, they're all panicking a bit, because they can't understand each other anymore. They all speak different languages.”

“I don't see why that's worth panicking over,” Crawly said, furrowing his brow in the direction of the town. “They speak different languages everywhere.”

“Um, not here. Or at least they didn't, until very recently.” Aziraphale was looking straight forward, at the crowds of people running around beneath a somewhat tall tower. He seemed a bit uncomfortable, but nowhere near as uncomfortable as he’d been about the Flood.

No one must be dying, then.

Crawly squinted in the sun. “How recently?”

Aziraphale’s voice went a bit higher, like he’d just missed a deadline and was distressed about it. “Today. The sun hasn't moved since it started.”

“So just right now. This just happened.” Which made sense, given when Crawly had heard the shouting.

“Yes.”

Crawly sat down next to him. “Huh.”

They sat in silence for a while.

“Can I ask  _ why?” _ He asked after a bit. The people still hadn’t calmed down.

“The Almighty decided they must be punished, for their hubris,” Aziraphale said, and he sounded like he half believe it was deserved, but the other half was just reciting a line.

Crawly scoffed. He wasn’t sold on this whole thing yet, but humans were indeed prideful. And worse things had happened to them as a result, anyway. “Well they certainly have a lot of that. What hubris, exactly?”

Aziraphale pointed at the tower. “They were building that, to try and reach the Heavens. So God muddled their speech.”

Crawly stared at it. “It’s not even that tall.”

“It’s the intent, I believe.”

He supposed that made some sense.

They sat in silence again. Some of the people had started crying. They watched them run around and clutch at each other, fall and wail at the tower’s base.

“I have another question,” Crawly said after a bit.

Aziraphale sighed, annoyed, and a bit holier-than-thou. “You  _ always _ have questions. That’s all you’ve had since you got here. It’s no wonder you are what you are.”

Crawly ignored that. Heaven had too many rules anyway. “I just wanted to know,” he said, somewhat defensively, “what’s with the Almighty and this part of the world? Always picking on them.”

“It’s not  _ picking _ .” Aziraphale insisted. “They tend to do more bad things than most, I’m assuming.”

Crawly raised his eyebrows and turned to face him, incredulous. “Have you been anywhere else, at all, since the Garden? Anywhere? Because I know for a fact that is not true. Humans do bad things  _ everywhere _ .”

Aziraphale opened his mouth.

“And it’s not always my fault, either.” Crawly added, before Aziraphale could make the point he was most definitely about to make.

Aziraphale took a different approach, then. “Well, that is their  _ choice _ , Crawly. That’s the whole point.”

The  _ point _ was never clear as far as Crawly was concerned. Humans could choose good or bad, and they were supposed to sway them in one direction or the other, but this specific group of them kept getting punished for the bad, and the rest of them just flat out ignored. Or at least, less obviously poked at.

Crawly put his chin in his hand, elbow perched on his crossed legs. Both up and downstairs all thought they had a handle on it, and that the other side was grasping the wrong end.

And even if they didn’t all think that, they pretended they did.

Crawly didn’t even know if they’d actually been grasping at anything, let alone a fully realized handle.

He let Aziraphale’s answer hang in the air for a few more moments while he contemplated  _ ineffability _ , as Aziraphale always called it. Then he pointed at the crowds of people crying at the base of the tower. “You know, my lot is a fan of negative reinforcement, too.”

Aziraphale huffed and stood, sending sand flying. “I don’t know  _ why _ I’m explaining this to you. We shouldn’t even be talking.”

Crawly brushed his robe off and looked up at him. “I thought angels were supposed to be all about spreading the Good Word,” he said, and tried emphasizing his sarcasm a little more, because the angel never seemed to quite grasp it.

Aziraphale looked torn. On the one hand, Crawly was  _ technically _ correct, sarcasm aside; on the other, intent was everything with the Almighty, it seemed, and talking with the Enemy probably wasn’t a Sanctioned Angelic Activity. He also very clearly wanted to stop having this conversation.

He deliberated a few more moments before giving up and sitting back down.

“I  _ did _ try to warn them,” Aziraphale said, somewhat sadly, looking out at the town and the people, and there was his missed deadline.

“Were you supposed to?” Crawly suddenly found himself very interested in knowing. He wondered if this was like the sword thing.

“Not...exactly.” Aziraphale admitted. “But just  _ look _ at them! They’re so upset.” He started  _ actually  _ wringing his hands. “They didn’t listen, in any case.”

Crawly looked at him. “If it’s any consolation,” and he almost got up an left right then, because those words were bordering on kind. He didn’t do kind, especially not to an  _ angel _ . “They would never have listened anyway. I’ve learned humans are like that.”

There, that had a bit more bite to it.

“One always has to try, Crawly,” Aziraphale told him. And this, he fully believed.

“Oh I try, but I try in a very different direction than you.”

Aziraphale didn’t answer that, but he did say: “I think, in the end, this will all be ok. They’ll make new cultures and customs and the world will be brighter.”

He smiled. He believed this too. Crawly wasn’t convinced how much good would come of a mass influx of misunderstandings, but they did make his job so  _ easy _ .

“Tell that to them,” he said. “Besides, misunderstandings give me the best working conditions.”

Aziraphale glared at him. Crawly shrugged, then stood.

“Well, better get down there. Muck some things up, you know. I’ll see you.”

He started clambering down the hill. Aziraphale followed him.

“You’re coming with?” Crawly asked, a bit confused.

“I can’t just  _ let  _ you go down there,” was his reasoning. “I’m supposed to oppose you at every turn.”

Crawly shrugged again. “Fair enough.”

They half walked, half slid down the hill together, towards the town and the tower and the people. Fights were breaking out. It was getting to be a real mess.

Crawly smiled. This would be a breeze. This would be  _ fun _ . He looked back at Aziraphale’s concerned face and smiled just a little bit wider.

He didn’t realize it at the time, but he was happy about the prospect of having company while he worked.

The world was a wide, lonely place, after all. And if the people fighting and yelling around them were any indication, it was getting lonelier.


	3. Mesoamerica, 2100s B.C.

The other side of the world was strange.

The whole world was strange, but Aziraphale had gotten used to being in more or less one place.

He’d mentioned though, offhand during a report, that the Enemy had been to many other places since leaving the Garden, and Heaven had responded in panicked kind.

“They’ve been _ everywhere?” _ Gabriel had asked. He hadn’t picked up at first, just let Aziraphale leave a message, but as soon as he heard what Aziraphale was saying, the line had opened immediately.

“So it would seem,” Aziraphale had answered, startled.

The beam of light he’d been speaking into flared. “Well, you have to go everywhere. Right now. Find out where in _ everywhere _ their agent is and _ go there _.”

Aziraphale had no idea how he would do this. In the time since the Garden, every instance he’d found Crawly had been completely by accident. It was never planned.

Aziraphale had pointed this out, a bit timidly, while also omitting the fact that every time he’d seen Crawly he’d also _ talked _to him, and Gabriel had said, still frantic but also still condescending: “Go across the ocean, then. That’s part of everywhere. Maybe you’ll see him. Don’t come back here until you do.”

“Don’t come back - to _ Mesopotamia_?” Aziraphale had at this point gotten uncomfortable. He didn’t like change, and God had been consistently present in Mesopotamia, and nowhere else. Aziraphale liked it there. “What if the Almighty needs me?”

“The _ Almighty _ needs you to _ thwart evil _. So go do that. In that other continent.”

The had light then gone out, and Aziraphale had sighed. And then he’d been sent across the ocean.

That other continent. Might as well be another Earth.

It certainly felt like it. He walked along in the hot sun and past different plants. He took in different smells and sounds. There were still the markers of early human civilization permeating the landscape, just not the civilization he was used to.

He felt very out of place.

Aziraphale pushed his way through some leaves, where voices swirled in the air with the smoke from a fire.

Well, two voices, speaking rapid fire in their language. Another sound might have been a voice, but mainly consisted of what Aziraphale could tell were butchered words, and hissing.

The three of them looked up immediately when Aziraphale stumbled into their small gathering. Two of them stood and drew weapons.

The third was Crawly, who remained seated and had been waving his arms, trying to communicate something to two very intently-listening humans. Humans who were now very intently studying Aziraphale for weak points.

Crawly looked about as startled as Aziraphale felt, but then he _ smiled _. It was...forked.

“Aziraphale?” He began, twisting his body around to face him. “Finally left the outskirts of the Garden, hm? How’s the West treating you? Not really your typical direction.”

Aziraphale glared. The two humans raised their weapons higher.

Crawly turned to them. “Oh, he’s fine. I know him,” he said, and then tried saying it again, in their language, and somehow succeeded.

They eyed Aziraphale suspiciously, but seemed to accept this and sat back down.

Aziraphale did not sit, because he had not accepted this.

_ I know him_.

He supposed it was true. They did know each other. They’d known each other since the beginning. They knew each other’s names, and purpose, and a few other things. Aziraphale would, at this point, recognize Crawly immediately upon seeing him in a crowd, which was not all that concerning given that he was supposed to keep an eye on him.

What was concerning was how friendly those words sounded. _ I know him _ was a step away from _ I’m friends with him_, which was not something they could ever be, nor should be. But Aziraphale _ liked _ it. He liked the thought that he wasn’t completely on his own.

Crawly was not the company he would have chosen. But he was the company that was here. And this side of the world made Aziraphale feel very small, and very alone.

He sat down. The invitation had been implicit.

Crawly nodded, then put his hand up while he finished trying to talk to the two men across from them. The two men, after a moment, nodded and smiled, and then left. Crawly smiled too, and it wasn’t a pleasant one. It was a job-well-done kind of smile.

“What was that about?” Aziraphale asked, once they were gone. It dawned on him, what had just happened, and his tone became indignant. “What did you tempt them into doing?”

Crawly waved a hand, amused now. “Don’t get your feathers ruffled. It’s nothing too terrible. At least, nothing they weren’t already thinking of themselves. I just gave them a gentle, demonic nudge.”

Aziraphale made to stand. “Well, it’s a good thing I’m here. I should stop them.”

“I wouldn’t do that, unless you want to get discorporated. They’re just as violent over here as they are everywhere else.” Crawly leaned back on his elbows. “Besides, it’s already done.”

“_What _ ’_s _already done?” Aziraphale was getting more agitated by the second.

“What, you think the East is the only place with villages and budding cities? With leaders everyone wants to overthrow?” Crawly asked, with an attitude that suggested Aziraphale should know this, and just accept it. Like it was no big deal. Most things were _ no big deal _to Crawly, it seemed. Or at least, he tried very hard to make them that way. “I just gave them some advice on the overthrowing bit. Sit back down.”

“I was sent here to -”

“Thwart me, yes, fine. Do it after lunch or something. I won’t stop you.”

Aziraphale peered at him. “Lunch?”

“_Food _ .” Crawly insisted. “They brought food. They _ left _ the food too. ‘For your friend,’ they said.”

“We are _ not _ -”

Crawly hauled an intricately patterned pot over to him and fished around in it. He pulled out a handful of something and held it in front of Aziraphale’s face.

They looked like little round, yellow-ish pods. They seemed somewhat squishy.

“Eat lunch with me,” he asked.

Aziraphale just looked at him, face blank with confusion. Things had veered very far to the left, very quickly.

Crawly lowered his hand a bit. “You have to admit, it’s pretty impressive, when you think about it. They _ made _ their own _ plant, _out here in the West. They showed it to me. Starts about as big as a finger on a stalk. Then they turn it into this.” He wiggled his hand. A few of the pods fell out.

Aziraphale was still trying to process the request to _ eat _ , the words _ with me _ hopefully to follow, but his curiosity got the better of him. He zeroed in on the pods. Then on Crawly.

“What do you mean they made their own plant?”

Crawly took his hand away and tipped it towards his mouth. He chewed and swallowed. “They made it grow how they wanted. It took a long time, but they figured it out.”

Aziraphale’s eyes widened and he stared at the pot. Until now, the only being he saw make plants the way they wanted was God. “Can I see it?”

“It’s only the cooked stuff here,” Crawly started, stopped for a second, then continued very casually. “But I can show you the fields they have later.”

Aziraphale latched onto this idea immediately. He wanted to see them. He wanted Crawly to show him.

“As long as you take me to talk to the two gentlement you just tempted into whatever it is you tempted them to do,” he conceded, as if Crawly showing him something he’d asked for was a favor to Crawly.

It made him a bit more comfortable, to frame it that way. But only a bit. It was his angelic duty, after all.

Crawly scoffed. “Deal. But only because I know it won’t do _ anything_.”

He hefted the pot between them. “Dig in,” he said.

Aziraphale looked at the contents. He was still skeptical about this whole eating business. He’d never tried it. As an angel, he didn’t _ need _ to eat in the first place, and nothing had really caught his fancy. This didn’t either.

A furrow formed between his brows, a puckered _ u _ for unsure.

Crawly rolled his eyes. “Just try it, angel.”

The _ u _deepened. Aziraphale sat straight up and stared at him. “Angel?”

Crawly had never called him that before. It might have tried, vaguely, to be an insult, while also just stating plain fact. Something in it also sounded like it might be happy, which confused Aziraphale greatly.

It was, overall, an enigma.

And it _ being _an enigma was, also, enigmatic.

Aziraphale scrunched his nose slightly at this.

The look on Crawly’s face seemed to indicate that the word had been completely unintentional, but also that he liked it and was going to run with it if Aziraphale let him. His confidence that Aziraphale would, however, seemed to be waning by the second.

He raised his eyebrows, a hint of a challenge on his face. “That’s what you are, isn’t it?”

And this was true. Aziraphale _ was _ an angel. Something about the nickname seemed friendly, though, like the rest of this interaction had been. That might be the root of the problem.

But Aziraphale also, sort of, liked it, in much the same way he liked hearing _ I know him _.

Aziraphale shoved his hand in the pot and grabbed a fistfull. “Yes, it is.”

Crawly smiled, satisfied. “Didn’t think that had changed. Aziraphale is a mouthful, anyway.”

Aziraphale stopped his hand halfway to his mouth, any pleasantness shifting to offense. “No one else has any problems with it.”

“Did I _ say _ I had a problem with it?” Crawly snapped, suddenly prickly. “It’s just a lot of hissing, sometimes. And a lot of syllables.”

Aziraphale eyed him, eyed the food in his own hand, and cycled through eyeing each in turn two more times before conceding. “That’s fair, I suppose.”

He then picked one pod up delicately and put it in his mouth.

It was _ wonderful _.

He couldn’t describe the taste if he tried, because he’d never eaten food before, but he was _ tasting _ something, and that in and of itself was so novel Aziraphale wasn’t sure what to do with it. The pod was soft but somehow still crunched a bit between his teeth when he chewed, and that was novel too.

Novel, and _ incredible _.

_ Eating _. Who knew.

Apparently, Crawly did.

Aziraphale popped several more pods into his mouth and grinned, fiercely, and turned that grin towards the demon next to him.

Crawly was watching him, chin in hand and elbow on his knee, with wide eyes and a somewhat unaware smile. It pinged in Aziraphale’s mind as a face he’d seen before, a long time ago, in Eden. On the wall.

Crawly was _ fascinated _.

Aziraphale directed his grin into his lap instead and tried to tamper it down. He mostly failed.

“So, _ angel _,” Crawly drawled, trying the new name out, rolling it around like the pods they were eating. “What do you think?”

Aziraphale gave up trying to hide his expression. The excitement was too much to bother. “I think-” the words bubbled out of him before he’d even finished chewing. He stopped himself with a hand to his mouth and swallowed. “The humans have _ truly _ outdone themselves.”

Crawly didn’t answer, just stared at him for another moment before he fell into a lounging position in dirt and ate more pods. His smile looked more at home now, like he knew he was making it. It was a lot more self-satisfied, too.

Aziraphale looked down at the pods in his hand and concluded that this was the beginning of a very long, very joyous relationship with the very human act of eating. He wondered what the East had in store, whenever he returned.

But he quite liked the West now, he decided. It was interesting, more so than he thought it would be. He found he was missing the East less than he was an hour or so ago, even though he had only left the East yesterday.

They finished their lunch mostly in silence, Crawly pointing out an odd bird or some other animal and telling Aziraphale the local word for it. Aziraphale ate most of what was left in the pot, and told Crawly bits and pieces of what had been going on in Mesopotamia.

There was no harm in that, really. It had already happened, so it’s not like Crawly could use the information for anything.

All Aziraphale needed to report when this was over was that he successfully located the Enemy they’d sent him to find. He was sure Crawly would do the same with his side of things. They couldn’t get in trouble for reconnaissance.

Crawly pointed out another bird for Aziraphale to marvel at.

Purely reconnaissance. Nothing more. Nothing to cause trouble.

It was nearing dusk when they finished. Crawly snapped his fingers at the fire as Aziraphale tilted the pot towards himself and peered somewhat despondently at its emptiness. The fire went out and Crawly stood, brushing dirt off of himself.

“Ready to see the fields?”

Aziraphale looked up at him, resolute. “_After _ I talk to those two men.”

Crawly rolled his eyes again. “It’s going to get _ dark_. You can’t see tiny plants in the _ dark_.”

Aziraphale stood and folded his hands in front of him. “_I _ can create light. So I’m sure we’ll be fine.”

“Oh, yeah, perfect thing for the locals to see. Big beam coming up out of their fields. Won’t cause any problems.”

Aziraphale didn’t rise to that, even though he wanted to, because Crawly was actually right. It would start - well Aziraphale wasn’t sure _ what _ that would start but the more he thought about it the more he realized it would be a whole lot of _ something _ . He let out an exasperated breath he hadn’t needed to inhale. “Well it’s not like I’m leaving _ tonight. _ If you insist we see it in the daytime, there is always _ tomorrow _.”

Aziraphale really wanted to see the fields - they were human Creation, after all.

Crawly raised an eyebrow at him. Aziraphale realized belatedly _ tomorrow _was the first time they’d be having more than a chance encounter, and he’d been the one to suggest it.

“I can do tomorrow,” Crawly said, slowly, a bit skeptical. “_If _ ,” and he grew another mischievous smile. Though, maybe this was more _ conspiratorial _. Aziraphale had no idea what he thought they were conspiring on. They were doing nothing of the sort.

But Crawly had been smiling an awful lot, this entire time.

Aziraphale cut him off. “Whatever condition you’re offering, I’m not interested.”

Crawly raised both eyebrows this time. “All I was going to suggest was that we eat first. But if you’d rather not have more food...” and he trailed off.

Oh. Aziraphale would absolutely like more food. It didn’t sound like there was anything to eat in the fields, so of course they would have to eat beforehand. “Oh. Well. Yes,” he said, haltingly. “Lunch first then.”

Crawly started making his way into the line of trees, in the same direction the two men from earlier had gone. Aziraphale followed. “Lunch first,” he repeated, and Aziraphale didn’t need to see him, to know he was smiling again.

Aziraphale smiled too, because he liked food. And he liked eating it with someone else. He knew both of these things to be innately true, even though he’d only discovered food this afternoon, and had never experienced eating it alone.

Humans shared food all the time. Clearly, that was half of the joy of it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case any of you were wondering, they're eating this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hominy


	4. Egypt, 1500s B.C.

Aziraphale stared in horror at the bush in front of him. It was on fire, and it was speaking.

He wasn’t horrified about that, though. Heaven was onto a new trend of communication, these bushes. It worked out so well with Moses, so they decided to start doing it with Aziraphale too. No more lights shining down from the sky. All his assignments lately came from flaming shrubs.

Aziraphale thought it was a bit unnecessary. After all, he didn’t need any convincing of the Almighty’s power. A disembodied voice would have done just fine; no need to go burning all the plants. There weren’t that many here, in Egypt, to begin with, being a desert and all.

But they persisted, and more than anything it was a tad startling when Aziraphale rounded a corner and a bush spontaneously combusted.

No, he wasn’t horrified over the _ bush _ . Or that it was talking to him. He was horrified over what it was _ saying _.

“You’re already there, there’s no point in sending more than one other angel. Honestly I don’t even think we need anyone other than just _ you _, but it’s a lot of smiting to get done in a night, and we want to be thorough.” Gabriel droned on in the way someone does when they really like the sound of their own voice, and they don’t like who they are shoving it at.

A pause. The bush crackled.

“Come again?” Aziraphale asked, weakly.

“_ First Borns _, Aziraphale. They gotta go.”

“Right. That’s what I thought you said,” He answered.

Somehow, Gabriel gave the impression of checking the time, which was an odd thing to do when Heaven didn’t really follow time, and timekeeping on Earth was rudimentary at best. “We’ll send you a rendezvous point and the name of your partner to whatever plant you happen to be standing next to when we figure it out. Be ready, lots of ground to cover.”

The bush promptly went out. Aziraphale stared at it for several minutes, slack-jawed and wildly uncomfortable.

He then began pacing, frantic, in front of it. After several rounds he ran into someone, which was odd, since he was behind a building in a fairly empty area where no one bothered to walk very much.

The someone was Crawly.

He grabbed Aziraphale’s arms to steady him, then let his hands drop. He raised an eyebrow, but seemed genuinely pleased to see him. Aziraphale wasn’t sure what to do with _ that _, because while somewhere in the back of his mind he was pleased to see Crawly as well - and he always was, lately, but he would never admit that to anyone, especially not himself - he was rather preoccupied.

“Aziraphale,” Crawly greeted, frowning slightly when he noticed how distressed Aziraphale must have looked, as hard as he was trying to hide it right now. Crowley tilted his head, snake eyes peering at him from over whatever it was he was wearing on his face nowadays. “Fancy seeing you here. What’s got you all out of sorts?”

Aziraphale huffed, agitated, and took a step back. “I am not _ out of sorts _ . And if I was, I wouldn’t tell _ you _.”

He was most definitely out of sorts, but Crawly wasn’t allowed to know that. No matter that Crawly already _ did _.

Crawly frowned deeper at the dismissal and rolled his eyes. “Pff, fine. Keep your head in the sand then. ‘S got to be easy out here.”

Aziraphale glared. “What are _ you _ doing here, anyway?”

Crawly sighed, dramatically. “A whole lot of _ nothing, _ apparently. They told me, ‘Crawly,” and he oddly grimaced at the name, “‘go to Egypt. There’s a Pharaoh there thinking about releasing some slaves, and we’re in favor of slaves, so make sure he doesn’t.’”

Aziraphale stared at him.

Crawly continued, gesturing at the area around them. “So I come all the way here, go to this Pharaoh, and I say ‘Hey, I heard you’re going to let your slaves go, might want to not do that, slaves come in handy after all-”

“It was _ you!” _ Aziraphale exploded, and he was angrier than he’d ever been, because now, there was someone to _ truly _ blame. You can’t _ blame _ God for God’s orders, but you _ can _ blame a demon for causing their necessity. “This is _ your _ fault! _ You’re _ the reason I have to do this!”

Crawly startled. Aziraphale had never yelled before, not at him, or really at anyone.

“Do _ what _?” He asked, affronted.

“That is none of your business,” Aziraphale sputtered, stopped, and sat heavily on the ground. As quickly as his anger came it left, and he sank, deflated, into the sand. “He won’t let them go because of _ you _. I should have known.”

Crawly sat next to him, and Aziraphale could tell he was both worried and gearing up to be offended. He was already halfway there. “I have no idea what you’re on about, but no, you didn’t let me _ finish _.”

Aziraphale buried his face in his hands as an answer.

Crawly took that as a cue to continue. “_ As I was saying _ ,” he started, like Aziraphale cutting him off was the worse offence here, “I get to this Pharaoh, and he tells me: ‘Who told you I was letting them go? That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.’ So whatever it is you’re mad about having to do, it’s not _ my _fault. He decided all on his own.”

Crawly reached down and picked up a handful of sand, let it run through his fingers. “I came here, and got covered in sand for nothing. I’m still going to fill out the paperwork, of course. Might as well get credit for the trip.”

Aziraphale let that sink in. He also let it sink in that, even if Crawly _ had _ tempted the Pharaoh, he didn’t have any say in _ Heaven’s _ policies. He didn’t like that. He didn’t like being angry with Crawly either but it was a lot easier than having all these negative feelings and no one to direct it to. He didn’t look up from his hands.

“We have to kill them,” he whispered. He shouldn’t be telling Crawly anything about divine plans, but he couldn’t help himself.

“Kill _ who _?” Crawly was getting impatient.

Aziraphale ripped his face from his hands. “The first borns. The _ children _ . Heaven’s orders. It - it _ must _ be done. It must be the _ right _ thing, it came from Heaven, but-”

Aziraphale stopped himself. _ But _ was a three letter word that led to falling. This must be part of the Plan. In the end, it must be. God was avenging but God was ultimately _ good _. Who was Aziraphale to question that?

He just wished he didn’t have to be involved. He’d never smited anyone. He’d never had to.

He glanced over at Crawly. He looked shocked, for lack of a better term. Crawly shifted to face him.

“He won’t let some slaves go so Heaven is killing _ more _ kids? What’s with Heaven and _ kids _?”

“How should I know,” Aziraphale said, wretchedly, pleadingly. “It’s ineffable, remember?”

Crawly said nothing, just looked at him like he’d grown a second head.

“There’s a good reason for this,” Aziraphale told him, in a way that implied he couldn’t fathom what that might be.

Though, that’s kind of the point of ineffability, he supposed.

He wished it wasn’t so hard to accept, sometimes. He wished he didn’t question it. Questioning was confusing and, furthermore, _ dangerous _ . Questioning was _ hard _.

Heaven was good and Aziraphale knew this, and that should be the end of it. But he wasn’t in Heaven. That made the difference, somehow.

“And they say _ my _ lot is bad,” Crawly mumbled.

“Your lot _ is _ bad. It is. Ultimately, something good will come out of this,” he said, with slightly more conviction. “_Nothing _ good comes from what you do.”

That, at least, he knew for certain.

Crawly shook his head like he really had something to say to that, but decided against it. He stood, reached a hand down towards Aziraphale and pulled him up alongside him.

“Let’s get lunch,” he said instead, and Aziraphale tried to hide his relief at the subject change. He couldn’t think about this anymore. He had a few hours, to ignore what he needed to do.

__________

The next message came from some reeds near the Nile, a few hours later, with Crawly walking next to him. It gave him a name and a place and the vague hour of “when the moon is highest,” while he watched in mounting dismay.

Crawly’s eyebrows rose to his hairline, but he didn’t say anything. Aziraphale didn’t either. They stood there for a few minutes.

Crawly glanced at the sun creeping across the sky. “Come on, angel,” he said, as if they had anywhere to be. Aziraphale did, but not for hours. He had no idea what Crawly was still doing here.

“Come on _ where _?” He asked, still rooted to the spot.

Crawly shrugged. “Away from whatever _ that _ was. Your side’s gotten creative with the messages lately, haven’t they?”

“It was a hit with Moses,” Aziraphale sighed, and followed him. They walked aimlessly until dark, until Crawly needed to leave, rather insistently, and for reasons he wouldn’t explain.

And then Aziraphale was alone.

___________

Aziraphale had been in Egypt for a little while, and had therefore acquired a small house on the outskirts of the city.

Currently, it appeared to be surrounded by fire.

Aziraphale ran out the front door.

It was a wall, essentially, that ringed the entire house a respectful distance away and was also burning every single kind of bush or plant nearby. There had been some closer to his house, but they’d been uprooted, and thrown into the flames.

Aziraphale looked at the moon; he was going to be late. He couldn’t be _ late _.

Fire couldn’t hurt him, unless it was hellfire, so while incredible confusing Aziraphale walked straight for it. He’d figure out why it was there later, after -

Well, after.

A hand grabbed his shoulder and pulled him backwards.

“_Watch it _, angel!”

Aziraphale spun around. “_Crawly?” _

Crawly grinned at him; it curled and was awfully full of teeth. “Don’t want to get your wings singed on _ that _. It’s hellfire.”

He looked _ exceedingly _proud of himself.

“You surrounded my house with _ hellfire _ ?” Aziraphale asked, incredulous. “Why on _ earth - _”

Crawly cut him off, and looked up at the moon. “Oh, would you look at that. Moon’s at its highest. Shame, really, looks like you’ll miss all the fun. Can’t go anywhere with _ hellfire _ surrounding you. I’ve got you trapped. A big win for my side, I think.”

It clicked then, or rather not clicked so much as broke over his head like a clay pot.

The fire roared around them.

Crawly was still looking at the moon, smiling, but Aziraphale was looking at Crawly. His mouth fell open in a small “_ oh _,” and his stomach did some sort of odd, swooping thing, and he felt warm.

The fire and the moon lit Crawly’s face in an odd glow. Warm undertones from the flames, cool blue illuminating his eyes. He wasn’t covering them, at the moment.

“No,” Aziraphale said, quietly. “I suppose I can’t.”

“And you can’t even _ call _,” Crawly said, and that explained all the burned plants. “Oh well, I’m sure they’ll get on fine without you.”

Aziraphale looked out into the flames. They were silent, for a little while.

A thought occurred to him. “You didn’t _ steal _ this hellfire, did you?”

Crawly made a noncommittal gesture.

“_Crawly _ ,” Aziraphale scolded, and he was on more familiar footing here. “You’ll get in _ trouble_.”

Crawly just laughed. “Please. Don’t worry about _ me _ , no one’s going to care about a little hellfire theft. Hell can’t go around punishing demons for _ theft _.”

“They can when it’s from _ them_,” Aziraphale insisted.

“I captured an _ angel _ on his way to do his divine duty. I’ll get a _ commendation_.” He waved a dismissive hand. “Speaking of which,” he said, turning around, “better get on with it, then.”

Aziraphale lost whatever traction his mind had gained in the last few seconds. Like a chariot losing a wheel. After it had only one good wheel to begin with. “What, exactly, are you getting on with?” He asked, hesitant.

Crawly walked towards his house. “The interrogation,” he answered, like it was obvious.

“The _ what _?” Aziraphale was more confused than ever.

“I captured you, didn’t I?” Crawly insisted, a bit aggressively. “I had a reason for that. It’s a lot easier messing with Heavenly plans when you know what they _ are _.”

Aziraphale hurried after him. “But you _ do _ \- oh, alright,” he conceded. Appearances, he realized. Crawly was trying to keep up some semblance of appearances. It was a lot easier for the both of them, if he didn’t spell it out. Azirpahale could barely spell it out in his own head. It did strange things to his insides.

Still, only half spelled among his thoughts, he was overwhelmingly grateful. And overwhelmingly… _ overwhelmed_.

Aziraphale didn’t have people do things for him, because he wasn’t a person. He was here, on Earth, among them, but on the outside. He didn’t have relationships like humans did. He had fleeting interactions.

He was, in truth, alone. No one could identify with the last few millennia he’d spent here.

Except Crawly.

Crawly could identify almost exactly. That was troubling as much as it was comforting. He watched Crawly shove open his door like he owned the place, presumptuous in that way he had, in that way he’d slowly been getting over the years, and Aziraphale realized he wanted the presumption. He wanted Crawly invading his spaces.

He wanted Crawly doing nice things for him. Because this was a nice thing.

Possibly the nicest thing.

It was a conundrum that didn’t bear thinking about, a demon being nice. He, as an angel, should _ want _ a demon to be nice, since that’s what he was all about. But wanting it in principle and seeing it are two different things, and demons aren’t, in general, beings one thinks of that way. Aziraphale chose stubbornly to ignore it when he could. And yet here it was, in front of him, padding around on his dirt floor, and generally being very, very hard to ignore.

Aziraphale closed the door behind him. “Interrogate away,” he said to the floor, as Crawly dropped onto a bench. ‘Would you care for some wine while you do?”

“I’ll never say no to that,” Crawly answered, looking around. He leaned forward. “So, to start, what is Heaven planning this time?”

Aziraphale busied himself pouring wine so he didn’t have to look at Crawly. “You know I can’t tell you that,” he answered, putting on a long-suffering tone and playing along.

Crawly accepted the cup Aziraphale offered him. “Well, worth a shot. Not getting anything from you. Looks like you saved the whole operation.”

Aziraphale couldn’t help the smile growing on his face. He directed it at his own cup as he sat on a bench opposite Crawly. “You are an excellent interrogator, if that makes a difference,” he told him, and tried to keep his tone from sounding like it did. He wasn’t sure what it sounded like, exactly, but knew somehow he should at least try to control it. “I just about broke.”

Crawly’s answering smile was almost as warm as the fire outside. Aziraphale tried to remember if he’d seen that look on his face before. He stared at it, watched it fade.

Crawly took a sip of his wine. “What next, then?” He asked, expression back to something Aziraphale was more familiar with.

Familiarity. That’s not something he should want from a demon, either.

__________

What next, was that they talked. They talked all night.

When the sun was just above horizon, Crawly peered out the window and stood up. “Sunrise,” he stated. “Should be over now.”

Aziraphale watched the sky through his window. A heaviness settled over the new day. Crawly walked out the door, and came back inside a few minutes later. The fire was out.

Well, it wasn’t, but it was no longer encircling his house. It was in a small pan tucked in the crook of Crawly’s arm.

“Looks like the fire is gone,” he said. “Not sure how that happened.”

“Looks like.” Aziraphale rested his chin in his hand.

“You could escape, you know, when I’m not looking,” he prompted.

“I can.”

An almost awkward silence seeped through the room. Crawly stayed put by the door, holding his hellfire.

Aziraphale stood. “Well,” he started, and he didn’t really want to step out of this bubble they’d made, but he would have to. Heaven would be waiting. “I better be making my escape now.”

Crawly nodded, but didn’t look at him. He looked into the fire at his side instead. “You do that.”

“What will you tell them?”

“Oh,” and he’d thought about this, he’d thought about all of it. “I let you escape. I’m letting you right now. You gave me nothing to work with, so I’m going to follow you. After I take this back.” Crawly tapped the side of the pan.

“Crawly -” Aziraphale started, taking half a step towards him.

“Don’t say it, angel.” Crawly snapped. “Take me to lunch, later,” he offered, a bit softer, as a concession. As an unspoken _ then we’re even_. A _ don’t mention it. Really do not mention it, ever. _

Aziraphale wasn’t sure _ lunch _ would quite cut it, but before he could say anything, maybe suggest _ several _ lunches, if that’s all Crawly was after, all he wanted in return, because while he couldn’t mention it he should do _ something _ to repay him, Crawly had gone.

For the best, maybe, Aziraphale thought after a moment. After all, there wasn’t supposed to _ be _ anything to repay in the first place. Technically, there wasn’t. Crawly had made sure of that.

_ Technically_, he’d been captured and interrogated by the enemy. No one gave out thank yous for that.

Aziraphale should love technicalities, as an angel. They were all the rage in Heaven. He suspected they might be all the rage in Hell, too. Everything seemed to run on technicalities, except when it didn’t.

Mournful cries filled the air as the city woke. Aziraphale had known they would not wait for him. They hated rescheduling smitings. It was all too much paperwork, doing that.

The cries weighed on him. But they weighed on him less than if he’d been able to follow his orders.

Aziraphale made his way to the nearest bush. Heaven was _ waiting_.


	5. Olympia, Greece, 776 B.C.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In my rush to leave for the airport and because google was acting up I completely skipped over /two/ whole chapters last week, so that's what I'm posting today.

The festival was for Zeus. It was the first official one they’d ever had, and Olympia was very, very crowded.

There was going to be a foot race soon. Crowley was looking forward to watching it.

She wandered around the sanctuary, weaving through the crowd and looking for something to fill the time. She might as well get some work done. Work was easy to come by these days, and she didn’t need instructions anymore. She still got them, occasionally, but she had plenty of practice by now, coming up with ideas on her own.

She hadn’t received an actual direction in at least a century. It was nice, being left alone. Crowley liked it. She sent reports back, they sent commendations for anything particularly clever, and Crowley got to do what she wanted, more or less.

She listened to a rather heated conversation between three men near an altar and tried to think of a way to intervene that might cause some sort of major disruption.

Crowley was trying to read the inscription on said altar when a cheerful voice floated up over the din. Crowley’s head snapped up. She knew that voice. She’d know that voice anywhere.

_ Aziraphale_.

Crowley looked over her shoulder and sure enough, there he was, standing about four paces away and not facing her.

Crowley was having a good time in Greece. But this made it _ better_.

She abandoned the altar and came up behind him. The angel hadn’t noticed her yet.

It had been a while, since they’d seen each other. Steady contact was difficult when neither of them stayed in one place for very long, and the last attempt had gone unanswered, obviously because Aziraphale was _ here _ instead of the Middle East again, like Crowley had thought.

She adjusted her robe, fidgeted. He still didn’t turn around.

Crowley might have missed him. She would never admit that, though, because demons on principle couldn’t go around _ missing _ people, let alone _ angels_. It was bad for the reputation. And she liked her reputation.

She just also liked Aziraphale. Liked his company. Since the Garden he had been the one consistent face, and no matter how much he protested, Crowley knew he liked her company too. They sought it out now, more or less underhandedly. Usually over a meal, since Crowley had shoved maize in his face a thousand or so years ago.

Really, it made sense. There was no one _ else_. And they were used to each other, at this point. Crowley would even say they were something like friends.

As far as Crowley was concerned, Hell sent her up here, so she might as well make due with the only true company Up Here had to offer. As long as Hell had no idea, everything would be fine. And there really wasn’t any way for them _ to _ have an idea, since they barely checked on her anyway.

And, fine, if she got right down to it, she was doing a bit more than just _ making due _ . Egypt was a bit more than _ making due_, but Aziraphale hadn’t deserved to go about killing a whole city of babies. And Crowley _ did _ get a commendation, despite whatever her motivations were.

She didn’t dwell on it, in any case, just like she didn’t dwell on many aspects of her and Aziraphale’s relationship. There wasn’t any point in her mind. It was what it was, whatever it was. It was there, and convenient, and Crowley liked that it was there and convenient, so that’s as far down the rabbit hole she ever went with it.

She stared at the back of his head for another moment, then tapped Aziraphale on the shoulder, smiling, just a little. Maybe more than a little.

Aziraphale startled and turned around, and his face did an odd jerk that looked like it started as a smile and then tried to force itself into a frown.

That meant he recognized her. Crowley was, for lack of a better word, flattered.

“Crawly?” Aziraphale asked, half-failed frown inching more and more towards fully-failed by the second, and Crowley tried to keep a straight face.

She’d pretty much decided on _ Crowley _ at this point. Hell was even starting to use it now, but she was still a bit hesitant to correct Aziraphale, growing smile or not.

“Yup,” was all she said instead.

“You’ve changed your form,” was Aziraphale’s response.

And she had. Human gender was complicated and new to Crowley, but it was fairly interesting to play with, and she was trying out a few things. Mostly she leaned towards her other human-shaped form - it was becoming her favorite - but every once in awhile she liked to switch it up. Sometimes it made her job easier. Sometimes she just felt like giving it a whirl.

Aziraphale had never seen it, though. They hadn’t run into each other the last time she was shaped like this, and this was, so far, only her second time trying it out for any significant duration.

She might have been slightly nervous. She had no idea why.

Crowley shrugged. “Giving this one another go, have been for a few decades.”

Aziraphale looked at her, nodded, and smiled fully. It left no room for argument. “Well, it looks nice.”

There seemed to be an _ as always _ tacked on the end of that. Crowley had no idea what to do with it.

Aziraphale, in the meantime, turned back around to face the entryway to the foot race. She slid next to him after a few seconds.

She clasped her hands behind her back. “What brings you to Greece, angel? I thought you were farther East.”

“Oh, I was. I’ve only been here a few days. I heard there was a _ festival_.” Aziraphale’s expression was eager, and Crowley knew he was thinking about the food, as always. All Crowley was thinking about was that he hadn’t answered her message.

She shouldn’t bring it up. She did anyway.

“I sent a message to the East, a while ago,” she said, attempting airiness. She was not sure she succeeded.

Aziraphale looked slightly guilty. Crowley frowned.

“Ah. Yes. I _ had _ received it, but I was rather busy at the time and the decades got away from me, and then there was this festival, and you weren’t in Greece when you had sent it, so…” and he trailed off.

Crowley tilted her head at him and frowned deeper. “It’s rude to ignore people, you know. Not very _ angelic_.”

“It wasn’t on _ purpose _ -” he started, then overcorrected. “Either way, you’re a demon, I shouldn’t be answering you anyway.”

Crowley rolled her eyes, trying to not be as offended as she currently was. He did this, often, these justifications. She should be used to it. And it shouldn’t bother her in the first place.

And yet.

“Well, if _ that’s _how you feel.” She made to leave. She’d watch the race alone, like she’d been planning to.

“Crawly, wait!” Aziraphale called, after a few seconds. He waited a few more before adding, “There’s a foot race starting soon,” and then said nothing else.

Crowley turned and stared at him from halfway to the next altar. She wasn’t going to spoon-feed this to him.

Aziraphale seemed to realize and took a large, unnecessary breath. “I was planning on watching. Would you like to join me?”

Crowley smirked, self-satisfied, but it stretched too much and she feared it was much closer to a genuine smile than it should be.

“If you insist,” she said, making her way back to him, and that sounded appropriately smug. She followed Aziraphale’s gesturing hands towards the entrance of the race.

The filed shoulder to shoulder behind the other spectators. Crowley craned her neck over some heads to get a better look as they shuffled forward. She could sort of see the track.

She scanned the feet of the people around her - a well placed series of trips might give them a decent view.

She was still looking at feet when she registered a rather loud voice coming from behind.

“Excuse me, sir! _ Sir! _”

Someone was shouting. Crowley turned around to see a man rushing towards them.

He addressed Aziraphale only.

“Sir, your wife cannot attend the games. She must leave.”

They both let that sink in for a good few seconds, and in that time Crowley’s brain blew straight over _ wife _ and landed squarely, angrily, on _ must leave_.

“My _ w _-” Aziraphale started, alarmed. Crowley cut him off.

“What do you _ mean _ I _ can’t attend? _ ” She yelled, looming over him. “It’s a _ foot race!_”

The man glared at her. Crowley glared back. Several other humans turned around to look, all disapproving.

“Sir, bring your wife under control and take her home. She is not welcome. It is _ forbidden_.”

Crowley was a few short moments from doing something that would most likely get her an award and then promptly a reprimand. Hell was less keen on visibility, now. They wanted everything under the table.

Aziraphale grabbed her by the shoulders and steered her away from the crowd before she got the chance.

“Of course, my good man, terribly sorry, I don’t know _ what _ has gotten into her,” Aziraphale was saying, and Crowley knew it was to diffuse the situation, but it only made her angrier.

Crowley sputtered.

“Come on, Crawly, we _ must _ be going” Aziraphale continued, before she could say anything, and _ that _was spoken with sternness and a warning for her not to try anything stupid.

Crowley steamed her way through the crowd and out to the street. She crossed her arms and glared back in the direction they came.

“I can’t _ believe _this,” she said.

Aziraphale looked apologetic. “You could always change your shape,” he suggested, helpfully.

“I’m not _ changing my shape _ just so they let me in! Why does it even _ matter?_” She threw her hands up and started walking away from the sanctuary.

Aziraphale hurried after her. “I can honestly say I do not know, my dear. I don’t understand it either.”

Crowley’s slowed a bit at the words. Aziraphale fell into step beside her.

_ My dear_. Aziraphale had started calling her that a few hundred years ago. It was nice. It was how Aziraphale talked, but it was nice to be on the receiving end of it.

She was still massively angry about the race, though. A well placed _ dear _ could only do so much.

She got maybe a few more paces before making a decision, turning on her heel, and stomping back towards the entrance.

“Crawly? Where are you _ going?_”

“I’m not just going to follow their _ rules_, am I? What kind of demon would I be if I just followed rules? Especially _ idiotic, human _ ones, like this!”

________

Crowley sulked.

“I _ am _ sorry, my dear,” Aziraphale said, for maybe the fifth time.

Crowley sulked harder.

The only reason they weren’t in prison was because Aziraphale had miracled them to the complete other side of Olympia, just before they were arrested.

The singular bright side to all of this was that Crowley had almost managed to start a riot, if that could even be called a bright side, because the word _ almost _ was key.

“You couldn’t even let me have the _ riot_,” she complained.

Aziraphale looked unimpressed. “You know that would have just drawn attention.”

“_ So? _ It’s a _ riot! _ My lot’s ok with _ riots, _they encourage them!”

He raised a chiding eyebrow. “Even at religious festivals that directly oppose the existence of the Almighty?”

Crowley made a snarling noise. “If this festival is so ‘_against the Almighty_,’ then, why are you even _ here?_”

Aziraphale saw the jab for what it was. “There’s no need to direct your anger at _ me _, you know.”

He was correct, but Crowley wasn’t done being an ass just yet. She crossed her arms.

“Why not? You let these humans walk all over me. Right after you admitted to _ ignoring my message_.”

She almost cringed. She hadn’t wanted to bring that up again, but it’s not like it was easy, sending messages. It was like shooting an arrow blindfolded and hoping the target hadn’t moved.

Aziraphale placed a hand in the crook of her elbow. “I’m sorry I ignored you. It wasn’t my intention.”

He sounded like he meant it.

Crowley stared hard at his hand. It wasn’t moving.

“We don’t need to watch the race,” he continued, like Crowley wasn’t drilling holes into his fingers with her eyes. His voice was soft. “There’s plenty more to the festival.”

It was excited, too. “_I _ heard that there’s going to be something of a _ barbeque_, tomorrow. They’re sacrificing a hundred oxen to Zeus. Anything leftover gets _ eaten_.”

Crowley finally lifted her eyes from Aziraphale’s hand to his face. It was extremely earnest. Crowley decided looking at his hand had been easier, but it was too late for that.

“That’s a lot of oxen,” was all she managed.

Aziraphale screwed his mouth up a bit. “Yes, it is rather much, don’t you think? But it doesn’t go to waste, and you won’t be turned away.”

“If I am, you have to let me start something, this time.”

Aziraphale smiled at her, and there was a fondness there. His hand was still on her elbow.

“Well, surely I will be too distracted to do anything about it, and not at all aware you are even here in the first place.”

Crowley’s shoulders sagged, gooey. She wasn’t sure what that was, but it came with a smile. “Thanks, angel.”

Aziraphale let go of her, and started walking. “For what?” he asked, the picture of innocence.

Crowley laughed and followed him. There were street vendors, up ahead. More to the festival, indeed.


	6. Northern Scotland, 870s A.D.

"You really must be more careful with this form my dear, they take so _ long _ to replace, what with all the paperwork, hold still now."

Aziraphale gripped the bearded axe sticking out of Crowley's left shoulder and neck area. It had lodged fairly deep there, on an angle, and if Crowley were human he would definitely have been dead.

Currently a rather large portion of his blood was soaking into the dirt floor of the house Aziraphale had dragged them to. Most likely, whoever owned it was dead at this point and wouldn’t care. Viking raids were particularly _ nasty_.

Aziraphale firmly ignored how the puddle beneath their feet was steadily getting larger. Frankly, it was ridiculous to dwell on it.

As was the _ fear _ that had settled in his gut while watching that axe firmly embed itself. Aziraphale hadn’t even thought about it before sending the man holding the axe straight into unconsciousness. He’d just _ done _ it, and then he half carried Crowley here.

But Crowley was fine, as always. And even if he hadn't been, well, that was - the _ point _ was he was fine. _ Would _be fine.

Aziraphale wanted him to be fine.

He shouldn’t care this much.

It was easy, Aziraphale thought, to downplay how much he cared when Crowley wasn’t sitting half-dead in front of him. When neither of them were almost-discorporated, which was most of the time, they existed plainly, and Aziraphale let it happen because it was nice.

He shouldn’t be doing _ that, _ either.

Aziraphale yanked at the axe handle. The blade came free and Crowley let out a breath that was somewhere between a whine and a hiss.

He swayed slightly, a bit woozy. Aziraphale smoothed his hair on impulse.

"You'd just miss me up here, that's it," Crowley said, sluggishly, in the tone of voice of someone who is not sure if they are happily drunk or grievously injured. Either way, close to unconsciousness.

Aziraphale dropped his hands and blushed, eyes wide like he'd been caught doing something he shouldn't, because he had been. "I- no, you'd just get so behind in your work is all," he floundered. "And...and if _ you’re _ behind then _ I’m _ behind, and none of that looks good."

His conclusion, at least, was solid.

"Sure, angel," Crowley said, still sluggish, unmistakably fond, and unmistakably humoring.

Aziraphale was about to insist while also moving away at the same time, but Crowley grabbing his hand stopped all of that rather quickly. Crowley smiled a bit, asked after the axe - "Whose idea were these things, anyhow? Pretty damn effective," - and then promptly keeled over, still hanging on to Aziraphale's hand.

Aziraphale bit his lip, rubbing soothing circles into the back of Crowley's hand with his thumb entirely without thinking, like his body could respond in no other way than to give Crowley comfort.

When he remembered himself, he explained it as simply a side effect of being an angel, nothing wrong with that whatsoever, and denied any possibility that it was a side effect of something else entirely.

Something else possibly related to how good it felt, being around Crowley. How Aziraphale gravitated towards him almost instinctively.

Aziraphale shoved all of this into a corner to unpack potentially never.

He sighed and, rather slowly, dropped Crowley's hand to sit him back up. He watched the jagged gash knit itself back together a moment before helping it along, Crowley's limp head sagging against his shoulder. Once finished Aziraphale shooed all the blood away, adjusted Crowley's shirt, fixed the rips, and laid him back onto the bed he had been sitting on. Most likely, he wouldn't be out for long.

Leaving now would be impolite, of course. Surely he can't be faulted for that.

Aziraphale sat in a chair next to him and watched, and waited. Every few minutes or so, he would catch himself wanting to hold Crowley's hand again, and would get appropriately distressed about it.


	7. Zhejiang Province, China, 1264 A.D.

They’d both been sent to the same area of China. For minor things, a temptation here, a blessing there; they’d finished fairly quickly and then subsequently run into each other.

This was a regular occurrence, both on purpose and not on purpose. It’s why they started the arrangement, or rather, explicitly defined what they were already sort of doing. Arrangement with a small ‘a’. It was too new for anything capital. Capital A’s were sharper, besides, and it was already poking at Aziraphale enough, when he deigned to actually think about it.

Poking, because he liked it, and it was most certainly not something he should do  _ or _ like.

In any case, China must have seemed as interesting for Crowley as it had for Aziraphale, since they both decided to just go ahead and do their respective jobs themselves.

And now they were here. Together, with no assignments forthcoming, and most likely wouldn’t be forthcoming for a while. Neither were particularly upset about this, especially not while enjoying festival food.

They were at a feast in Lin’an celebrating the Empress Dowager. Crowley had convinced him to go.  _ Convincing _ in this case meant bringing it up over lunch and Aziraphale responding that it sounded “quite lovely.”

Every once in a while, one got tired of token protests, and Aziraphale very much wanted to go. Human feasts were always so  _ exciting _ . Everyone was happy, and for the most part ignoring things that bothered them. There was dancing. There was  _ food _ .

There was, just now, an  _ explosion _ . The Empress Dowager was shouting.

This was not what Aziraphale had come to expect from feasts.

They may, possibly, be under attack.

Aziraphale whirled around in surprise. Or, he  _ tried _ to, but at the bang Crowley had jumped and grabbed onto his arm, rather tightly.

Aziraphale looked at him, and his face was drawn tight.

“ _ Aziraphale _ ,” he whispered, and he was on high alert, scanning everywhere for where the threat was coming from. He was startled, and possibly frightened. Definitely angry. “We should leave. Before getting discorporated. I’ve heard about gunpowder, nasty stuff, makes  _ explosions _ .”

“Explosions?” Aziraphale asked, confused. He’d no idea the humans had figured out how to do that on purpose.

“Yes, angel,  _ explosions _ . You know, something going bang in a whole lot of fire? Blows things apart?” Crowley explained this to him like he felt he should not have to. He relaxed his grip somewhat, but started using it to pull Aziraphale away from the crowd. “Humans always do this, don’t they? Ruin a perfectly good party -”

Before he could finish his sentence, there was another  _ bang _ , but Aziraphale had twisted in his grip to look backwards at the feast, and happened to be facing it this time.

It wasn’t an attack. It was  _ celebration _ . It had to be.

He looked at the sky in awe, and immediately stopped walking.

Crowley, who had not been facing the right direction, jumped again, making somewhat of an embarrassing noise he would surely deny, and yanked hard on Aziraphale’s arm.

“What are you  _ doing _ ? We need to  _ leave _ -”

Another bang. Another burst in the air. Crowley was still not looking, he kept scanning the outskirts of the square, and was getting more agitated by the second.

“ _ Crowley _ ,” Aziraphale turned and grabbed his arms instead, steadying him. “It’s not an attack.”

Crowley stared at him. He was facing the right direction now, at least. “Have you gone  _ mad _ ?”

“Just  _ look _ !” Aziraphale got behind him and shoved him forward. Another one, whatever they were called, went off. The crowd cheered. Crowley stopped trying to get away.

He stopped moving all together, face upturned towards the sky as the light streamed and sank to the ground. “What are they?”

Aziraphale let his hands drop from Crowley’s shoulders and moved to stand next to him. “I’m not sure,” he said. “But they’re for celebration. Not for war.”

Crowley stared at them, dumbfounded, and as more were set off, shot into the sky to burst into flame and light, he started to smile. “Humans,” he said, and it was rather fond. Aziraphale suspected he didn’t even realize how he sounded. “They always do this.”

“Do what?”

Crowley didn’t answer, but it seemed like he wanted to say  _ impress me _ . It was in the set of his shoulders, his hands hanging at his sides.  _ Impress me _ , but in a good way, this time.

They stood there in silence and awe, for a while, the crowd cheering around them as more were set off, sometimes even at once.

“D’you remember,” Crowley started again, after a particularly large explosion that had gotten much higher than the others. “When all the stars and things were being made? And they told us we all had to go and help?”

Aziraphale turned from the sky and looked at him. Crowley rarely talked about being an angel. They didn’t know each other, then. And it was so long ago.

He’d also uncovered his eyes.

Aziraphale stared, already unmoored from the show, but he lost all footing when he saw Crowley’s face. It was so  _ open _ . And the lights. The lights did wonderful things to his eyes. “Yes,” he said, after he found his voice. “I remember.”

And he did remember. It was a hard thing to forget, building galaxies and nebulas.

Crowley pointed at another explosion. “It’s like they figured it out for themselves. Only sped up.”

Aziraphale looked between the sky and Crowley, back and forth, before settling back on Crowley and not moving. Crowley was right. Humans, it seemed, had figured out yet another way to pull the universe down towards them. He wondered what they would come up with next. He wondered where they would be, during it all.

Another  _ bang _ , and Crowley’s smile grew, somehow, wider.

Aziraphale missed the last minutes of the show.

He didn’t let himself dwell on what that meant. It was a feast, after all. People weren’t supposed to be bothered by things, at feasts. They were supposed to ignore them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is an actual event, concerning the Empress Dowager Gong Sheng! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fireworks#History


	8. Venice, Italy, 1512 A.D.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two Chapters for today!! I will not be able to post at all next week, so I'm posting double.
> 
> Edit: So in my rush to the airport last week I completely skipped over two whole chapters that came right before China, so those have been posted today. Apologies everyone!! They are now chapters 5 and 6.

Aziraphale’s most recent letter had said he was in Venice, and that Crowley “might have some work to do, in a few weeks time.”

It had been a few weeks, and so he was here. It was _ Carnevale _season.

Crowley supposed Aziraphale was right, there was plenty to do when the entire city was embroiled in one large party.

“Still doesn’t explain why _ you’re _ here,” he said to Aziraphale, who was walking next to him and hadn’t said anything for several minutes. They’d been taking a nice, quiet stroll through the city.

“Hmm?” He asked, polishing off a few_castagnole _and licking the sugar from his fingers.

“You said I’d have work here. You were right, I do. So why are _ you _ here?”

Aziraphale looked scandalized. “My dear boy, this festival is in preparation for _ Lent_. Of course I have work here.”

Crowley laughed. “All this says about Lent is how much people _ hate it_. You can’t be serious.”

“I very much am.”

“This has got to be _ the _ most hedonistic holiday of the entire year. Frankly, I should be given an award for having you here with me. Nevermind you got here first.”

A group of well-dressed people in the traditional masks hurried between them. When they passed, Crowley snaked next to him again, walking closer so they wouldn’t be interrupted.

Crowley leaned in to his ear before Aziraphale could answer, indignantly, with whatever loose justification he was trying to think of.

“Admit it, angel, you’re just here for the food.”

Aziraphale blushed and sputtered. Crowley grinned.

“The food _ is _rather good,” Aziraphale admitted, after a moment, and that was as close to saying Crowley was right as Crowley was going to get. His grin turned smug. He wasn’t going to let that one go for a while.

He sauntered over to the nearest vendor to buy Aziraphale more pastries.

Aziraphale’s eyes lit up as Crowley handed him a cloth laden with them. “Oh you really _ must _ try some, my dear. There’s plenty to share.”

He held one out to Crowley, and Crowley took it immediately. They did look delicious. And they _ were_.

“Frying food was definitely one of their better ideas,” he said after he’d finished chewing.

“And they had the idea in practically _ every _ culture.” Aziraphale’s grin was infectious.

Crowley licked his fingers. “‘S because it’s a _ good idea_.”

Aziraphale nodded his now somewhat distant agreement, because his attention had re-focused onto his next pastry. He was _ savoring _ it. Crowley stared at him.

Another group of masks jostled them aside. They had sort of stopped in the middle of the street.

“Let's find a spot out of the way, shall we?” Crowley prompted.

Aziraphale opened his eyes. “Mph!” He swallowed. “Oh, yes! Of course. Got a bit carried away, there.”

“Bit of an understatement, angel.” Just a bit.

Aziraphale smiled somewhat sheepishly, and led the way through the streets to a quiet bridge just outside of the main square.

They watched Venetians row their way through the canal below, and ate in comfortable silence.

Aziraphale dabbed his mouth with the cloth in his hand when he finished and sighed, wholly satisfied.

“You know,” he began. “There’s going to be a _ masquerade _ ball this evening, hosted by this lovely gentleman I met the other day.”

Crowley raised an eyebrow at him. “A _ masquerade ball? _”

“Yes,” Aziraphale said, defensively, and that’s all he said.

“Are you going to _ go? _”

“I was _ invited_.” He glanced down at his hands like they might hold better reasoning. “It would be impolite not to.”

“It only works that way if you said yes to going in the first place.”

Aziraphale looked stubbornly out at the canal.

Crowley laughed at him. “You did, didn’t you? Of all the indulgent, Earthly things you could participate in, this has got to be near the _ top _ of the list. All that wealth and gluttony. More _ my _ speed, if you think about it.”

Aziraphale continued to frown at the water, possibly insulted. “If it is so _ your speed_, are you going to go?”

Crowley scoffed. “Pft. Of course not. They don’t need me there. And I don't want to go. I’d just be standing around watching them do my job for me. I could stand anywhere for _ that_.”

He looked Aziraphale up and down. “You have always liked the fancier things. It’s just a funny thought to have. An angel at a _ ball_.”

“Surely they will need some sort of guidance there.”

Crowley was very close to laughing again. “Oh, I don’t doubt it.”

“And it will be _ fun, _” Aziraphale insisted, then lost confidence. “I think.”

“Suit yourself. _ I’m _not going. Besides,” and this was maybe a bit sharp-tongued, “I wasn’t invited.”

He watched Aziraphale deflate and felt a small tinge of regret. “If you’re certain,” Aziraphale said, with the air that this was the exact opposite reaction he’d wanted out of Crowley.

Crowley had no idea what that meant, but he was also insistent on being very stubborn about this whole thing, for whatever reason. “I am.”

Aziraphale nodded. “I should be going, it’s late. Will you still be doing work tomorrow? Or are you returning to Florence?”

Crowley looked at him for a second before draping himself across the stone railing. “I’ll be here, of course,” he said with a softer smile than before. “Lot more to do, _ Carnevale _ isn’t even halfway over. And then there’s _ Lent_, and there’s plenty for me to do during Lent.”

Aziraphale smiled back, just a little, but it still wasn’t as bright as before. “I expect you’ll be in the city a while, then?”

Crowley propped his chin in his hand. “Seems likely.”

“I’ll have to stay too, then. I can’t possibly leave, when I know there’s evil snaking through the city. And during Lent, no less.”

Crowley grinned. “Meet here tomorrow, then? Business of course. The Arrangement. You can tell me all about your good deeds at this ball. Then I can counter them. Wins all around.”

“I am quite certain that is not how this works,” Aziraphale said back, but there was no bite, and Crowley knew that meant he’d be here, at this bridge, probably around midday.

He left Crowley watching the canal.

A few hours later, Crowley finally got the impression that Aziraphale had been trying to invite him to that ball, without actually inviting him.

He stopped halfway through pouring a glass of wine and looked out the window of the small home he’d just purchased, since he’d be here a while. It was already dark.

And he had no idea who this “lovely gentleman” was. If he had to guess, he was probably a member of the _ Signoria _, but that wasn’t much to go on.

Still, it’s not like there was going to be more than one ball on the same night. It couldn’t be hard to figure out where it was.

________

Crowley was extremely frustrated.

It turned out that it _ was _hard to find a single party in a city where he had only been for a few days, and lacked any proper connections.

Members of the upper class were all either _ at _ this party, or weren’t going to tell a stranger - even a nicely dressed one - where it was.

In the last hour he’d resorted to peeking past gates and in windows.

This was _ pointless_. He’s not sure if he lost the point, or if it just never had one to begin with.

He was about to call it quits when he heard music and laughter and the general sounds one hears when near a very large party.

_ Finally_.

Crowley slipped his mask on. No one was at the door, and no one noticed him walk straight in. He followed the sounds of the party through the house and out to a large courtyard, bordered by pillars and teeming with people.

Crowley walked around the edges until he saw Aziraphale. He knew it was Aziraphale immediately, mask or not.

It was how he stood, picked delicately at the food. It was in his outfit choice and the set of his shoulders. Crowley didn’t know the proper name for the white and gold gilded mask he was wearing, but it was the kind that let you eat and speak and breathe easy without taking it off. Most were wearing that kind of mask, but he _ knew _ Aziraphale would be.

They were beautiful, yes, but they were also comfortable. Aziraphale liked both of those things.

Crowley leaned against a pillar and watched him.

After a moment Aziraphale turned around, and Crowley couldn’t see his face but something about the air of him was scrunched in confusion. He scanned the outer edge of the crowd, the people milling about under the roof, and then his eyes landed squarely on Crowley and didn’t move.

Crowley felt caught, somehow. He waved.

Aziraphale unfroze and made a beeline for him.

“_Crowley?” _ He said, before even reaching him. Aziraphale peered directly into Crowley’s eyes once he had. Crowley couldn’t cover them, in a mask.

Crowley smiled, and it was there was something almost shy about it. That frustrated him. It baffled him too.

Aziraphale looked ready to burst with a million things. Instead he touched the edge of Crowley’s mask.

“_Colombina_, I think this one is called,” he said softly. “Little dove. Interesting choice, for a demon.”

Crowley wasn’t sure what to answer. He wasn’t sure he could, suddenly. All words had left him.

Azriaphale saved him from having to, for the moment. “It’s lovely. It looks lovely.”

“Thanks,” Crowley managed to get out. His voice sounded strange. Aziraphale’s hand was still hovering near his face.

Aziraphale noticed. “Are you alright?”

Crowley straightened against the pillar. “M’fine, angel. How’s your party?”

Aziraphale lit up at the question, eyes bright behind his mask. “Oh it’s _ lovely _, look at all these beautiful masks! They’re made by special craftsmen, you know,” he gushed. “Though, I suppose you do, since you’re wearing one. And when I got here, the host showed me his collection of books. That’s how we got to talking, the other day. He is quite well-read.”

Crowley pushed off the pillar and started leading Aziraphale back out towards the courtyard. “Sounds like you were having plenty of fun without me,” he pried, because he wanted to know if he was right, that Aziraphale wanted him here. He wanted to be right.

Which made sense, because he always wanted to be right. As did everyone, including Aziraphale.

And something about the masks and the stars and the sounds of water all around them made Aziraphale less careful. More open.

“But it’s far better now,” Aziraphale told him, beaming, and he didn’t bother to cover it up.

Crowley smiled. It felt wild.

“So angel,” he said, and he drew out the words, until they were sticky and quiet. “Care to show me around?”


	9. Europe, 1800s A.D.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is one of those chapters I wrote Before the show aired, so it pulls only from the book and I had far too much fun with it to want to change anything.

It was 1816, and Aziraphale had not heard from Crowley since 1805. They’d gone a few years without communication before, and it _ was _ his turn to reach out, so Aziraphale thought nothing of it until around 1827 when it occurred to him over dinner that it had been more than two decades. He got a bit annoyed, but assumed that whatever Crowley was doing, it must be fairly time consuming, and he would be done with it soon, at which point Aziraphale would most likely receive a letter.

He did not receive a letter.

He became slightly concerned sometime in the 1830s, but was unsure what else to do about it except resolutely staying put and continuing to check the mail, and by 1852 this concern formed itself into all out worry.

They hadn't gone this many years without speaking in a very, very long time.

_ ‘He could have at least sent a _letter,’ Aziraphale thought, angrily, while working himself up to finally go and look for Crowley near the tail end of 1854.

Surely he would have heard if something had happened to him, so obviously this lack of communication was just Crowley being rude, and inconsiderate.

Of their Arrangement, of course. Inconsiderate of their Arrangement. How was Aziraphale supposed to counter anything evil if he wasn’t aware of what evil was being done? He stewed on this for the few days and various trains and boats it took him to get to London from where he was currently stationed in eastern Germany, and by the time he disembarked he was well boiled.

They’d moved around a lot over the millennia, obviously; good and evil exist everywhere and so everywhere they must go. Sometimes, and more frequently as the years went by, they’d settle on the same place, but not always. London, for whatever reason, was a common choice for both of them, and would cycle back around every century or so.

Usually, though, if they were not in the same place, there would still be some form of communication. It kept in line with the Arrangement, and even if it was all a bit more familiar than just business neither one of them were going to point it out.

They’d been sending messages for millennia. The practice actually predated the formalization of the Arrangement, and Crowley wasn’t allowed to just _ stop _.

Aziraphale stalked haughtily up the stairs of the last residence he knew Crowley to have lived in, and tried the knob.

Locked. Of course.

He pounded on the door. “Crowley! I know you’re in there! What the devil have you been playing at? It’s been _ decades! _”

“Ahem?”

Aziraphale startled, slowly took his hand from the door and looked to his right. A woman was standing no more than two feet away, on the stoop of the next house over.

Aziraphale cleared his throat and awkwardly lowered his hand. “Um, yes, do you know if the gentleman living here will be back, anytime soon?”

She tilted her head at him, confused and a bit wary. “No one has lived in that house for as long as I’ve been here. Almost 50 years, my mother says.”

Aziraphale tried his best not to glare into the window next to him. He nodded, and turned slowly to face the steps. “Ah. Mistaken address, must be. Thank you, Miss. I’ll...be on my way now.”

“I hope you find who you’re looking for,” she said, with an increasing degree of suspicion.

“And he will hope I do _ not _,” Aziraphale muttered to himself, stiffly making his way down the stairs at a much slower pace than he had gone up them, and began to walk down the street in the direction he came from, until he heard the door of the woman’s house open and reclose.

Not for a second did he believe Crowley was not in that house. In no one’s right mind would a perfectly livable structure, with no wear and tear to be seen, be left empty for 50 years. In _ London_.

Aziraphale looked surreptitiously over his shoulder. Next door was firmly closed up.

He ran back up the steps. This time, when he tried the door, it unlocked for him.

He slipped inside and closed the door quietly as possibly, though he really was up for a nice, loud slam.

“You old serpent! Where are you?” He shouted, then coughed, waving his hand in front of his face to clear the dust.

It was rather dusty in here, Aziraphale noticed.

“When was the last time you _ cleaned _ this place?” He asked the empty room.

There was no answer.

Aziraphale huffed and made his way further into the house, checking hallways and opening doors. The first floor was dark and silent, and conspicuously void of any demons.

Anger subsided slightly to make room for a whisper of worry, and Aziraphale stomped it down. Clearly, Crowley was upstairs. He was here.

And ignoring him.

How _ dare _he.

Aziraphale stomped up the stairs and threw open the first door he ran into, which happened to be the bedroom.

“_Crow- _ Oh.”

Aziraphale was right, Crowley was in the house. He was just asleep.

“You’re sleeping,” Aziraphale said, a bit disbelieving. “You’re _ sleeping?_”

He shook his head and stepped up to him. By the coating of dust on both the mess of the bed and Crowley himself, he’d been asleep for quite a while. About 50 years, give or take.

Aziraphale dragged a hand down his face. “I can’t believe you.”

“You could have at least _ told _ me you were going to pass out for half a century,” he continued on, whisper-yelling. “What about your _ work? _”

Aziraphale paused, and suddenly, vividly, recalled a short conversation they’d had over tea at the beginning of the century, that went something like this:

“This century is so bloody boring,” Crowley said, swirling his tea.

Aziraphale looked up from his, eyebrows near his hairline. “How on_earth _can you tell? It’s only been 3 years.”

“Oh, I can tell.” Crowley pointed his cup at him.

Aziraphale shook his head. “It can’t be more boring than, say, the 1400s.” _ Nothing _ happened in the middle ages, except some flogging and beheading.

“Probably not, but I won’t be awake to find out.”

“Pardon?”

“Sleep, Aziraphale,” Crowley said. “I’m going to sleep. Wake me up when the century is over.”

Aziraphale put his tea down. “You can’t be serious. You don’t even need sleep.”

“Doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy it,” Crowley shrugged, and smiled, and leaned back in his seat.

Aziraphale scoffed a bit at this, and rolled his eyes.

“You were serious. You were _ actually _serious.”

Crowley, as if to make his point, continued sleeping.

Aziraphale sighed and studied him. He was taking up most of the bed, somehow, his face half-buried in a pillow and his mouth hanging open. 

He was drooling.

Aziraphale’s lip twitched, threatening what felt an awful lot like a smile. He wasn’t sure what he was feeling right now, though it edged very close to things resembling exasperation, relief, and, Heaven forbid, _ affection_. His foot nudged the blanket that had half fallen off the bed.

He picked it up. “You’re making it awfully hard to be angry with you,” he whispered, softer now, and draped the blanket back over Crowley’s shoulders. He waved a hand and cleared the dust off of him.

Crowley huffed in unconscious appreciation.

“And you were wrong, you know. There’s been interesting things they’ve done. Great big war in 1812, and a whole spell of revolutions a few years ago. They invented the telegraph.”

He smoothed the blanket down as he spoke, and may have gotten a little carried away and smoothed Crowley’s hair as well. It was sticking up rather haphazardly.

Completely without his notice, Aziraphale’s tone of voice reached a nearly unacceptable level of fond. He stared at Crowley with an expression of the same nature for much too long to be excusable. “There’s something called photographs, now,” he smiled. “Stand there, flash of light, and you have a picture of yourself. It’s really quite remarkable. Maybe when you wake up we can get one done of us.”

Aziraphale paused, hand outstretched and hovering over Crowley’s head.

A photograph. He’d suggested they go and get a _ photograph_.

He’d _ tucked Crowley in_.

“Well,” he started, then stopped. His mouth opened and closed like a fish.

This was getting out of hand. Whatever _ this _ was.

Aziraphale was beginning to suspect his feelings about Crowley were not normal, nor would they be appreciated by his superiors.

This was false. He’d _ suspected _ for a while. He’d just gotten very good at ignoring it, and was finding that increasingly more difficult.

Crowley continued to drool into his pillow. Inexplicably, this made the situation worse.

Aziraphale's hand hovered a second more before landing, awkwardly, on Crowley’s head, and then proceeded to move back up in the air and down again in some odd semblance of a pat. Aziraphale did this three times before snapping himself out of it.

He spoke in a rush, no longer whispering. “I’ll just be off then. Still about 50 odd years to go before you plan to wake up. No sense in me being here. See you in the 1900s.”

He turned heel and left the room, went down the stairs, and exited the house with his shoulders halfway to his ears, his elbows in right angles, and his hands in fists, looking very much like he was attempting to ski somewhere but did not quite have the hang of it.

The door slammed behind him and locked of its own accord.

The woman next door was also, unfortunately, exiting her house, this time with a small child in her arms. She stared at Aziraphale in shock.

“Weren’t you just-” she began. Aziraphale completely ignored her.

He took his various boats and trains back to his own residence, and did not try to contact Crowley again for the rest of the century.

Sometime in 1902, he finally received a letter. It contained a lot of things; what Crowley had been up to since he'd woken, mostly. Most notable, however, was the request that maybe could they try out this whole photograph thing sometime, it being both ironic and hilarious to him to have an angel and a demon posing for a picture.

And because for some reason he'd woken up with the idea, despite not really knowing what a photograph was just yet.

Aziraphale put his face in his hands and groaned. This was getting out of _ hand_.


	10. London, 1926 A.D.

Crowley stayed in London. Sometime after the turn of the century, Aziraphale moved there as well. He acquired an antique bookshop on a corner, and quite literally set up shop. He eventually let Crowley convince him to have a photograph done, and after a lot of rigmarole and bickering, they'd managed to get a few good ones.

Crowley framed his, and so did Aziraphale, and neither of them told the other.

In 1926, Crowley bought himself a car. He wanted to show Aziraphale immediately.

He justified this by reasoning that he was genuinely excited about his purchase, and could tell that he and this new car were going to get on rather fantastically, for a good long while. He wanted to tell _ someone _ about it, and Aziraphale was really the only option.

It was a Bentley, and black, and frankly gorgeous. Big, too. And so much better than those giant horses he'd been made to (unsuccessfully) ride.

He drove it to Aziraphale's shop that afternoon. It was a learning experience for both Crowley and the car, which had until that point never seen the road, and had most certainly never seen what a demon would do on it.

Crowley grinned the entire time.

He’d have to get the hang of parking on this street, he realized as his tire scraped the curb. Use the alleyway next time.

The tire was free of any and all marks by the time he stepped out of the car.

He did not run into the shop. He did, however, take a few less strides to cross the sidewalk than he normally would have needed. The shop bell jangled almost violently in the enthusiasm with which Crowley threw open the door.

It was dark inside. This meant nothing, since it usually was, open or not.

“Excuse me,” called a voice from the back room, polite as always but rather standoffish, and getting closer as its owner walked towards the front. “We’re not open- oh, hello Crowley.”

“You know if you locked the place people wouldn’t just waltz in when you decide you’re not open,” Crowley told him.

“Most people do not ‘waltz in,’ except maybe you. I _ do _have a closed sign.”

Crowley turned back to the door. There was indeed a sign, and it was flipped to closed. “Fair enough,” he conceded. He never paid much attention to the shop’s opening hours, because they were haphazard at best and in all honesty did not apply to him. Aziraphale had never told him this explicitly, but he hadn’t needed to. He’d implied it when he’d shown Crowley around after buying the place, and continued to reinforce the matter by never really kicking him out at closing, whenever Aziraphale decided it would be that day.

“And I lock up when I leave. And at night,” Aziraphale added, a bit defensively. He hefted the books in his arms onto the front counter and walked up to Crowley, peered as his face in the gloom, and squinted suspiciously.

“What’s got you so happy?”

Crowley beamed down at him. “I bought something. Wait till you see it, angel.”

Aziraphale took a tentative step back. “I’m not all that sure I want to know.”

“You do, come on,” Crowley grabbed his elbow and proceeded to drag him out towards the street.

“What- _ where _ are we _ going?” _

“Just outside! Not far!”

Crowley continued to drag him through the door and to the curb, until he stopped in front of his Bentley. He dropped Aziraphale's arm, and waited.

Aziraphale studied the glossy black body. “You...bought a car.”

Crowley grinned. “I did.”

They both stood there a moment.

“When did you buy it?”

“Just this morning. Brand new.”

Aziraphale was not as impressed as Crowley wanted him to be. Crowley was also unsure, however, what level of impressed he had been looking for, and further, why it even mattered.

Aziraphale looked at him. “Did you drive it straight here?”

“Yes, I -” Crowley cut himself off, not quite liking where that was going, and decided the best course of action from here would be to steamroll over that train of thought completely.

“Let’s take a drive,” he said, firmly, as if half an admission of maybe, possibly, wanting the angel’s approval along with his shared excitement hadn’t unfortunately fallen out of his mouth about ten seconds previous.

Aziraphale looked alarmed. “But-”

“Lock up your shop, angel, and get in the damn car,” Crowley told him, a tad more aggressive than was probably necessary.

Aziraphale huffed, but turned to lock his shop anyway. “There’s really no need for that attitude, my dear.”

Crowley just sighed and yanked the driver’s door open. “Come on,” he called from the open window, milder this time.

Aziraphale sat carefully in the passenger side of the bench seat. “It seems nice,” was his tentative assessment.

Crowley snorted. “It _ is _nice. You should see how it drives.”

“Isn’t that the whole point of this? For me to see how it drives?”

“Yes,” Crowley answered, a bit awkwardly. He adjusted his sunglasses. They were new, too, and all the rage right now among movie stars, which Crowley was glad for, since now they made him look cool. He’d always managed to cover his eyes somehow, but with varying aesthetic results ranging from “that odd fellow over there” to “some sort of plague doctor, maybe?”

The man who sold him the Bentley, at least, was impressed with them.

He wondered what Aziraphale thought of them.

“So where are we driving to, then?”

“Well,” Crowley began, and then realized he hadn’t thought about this part at all. He recovered by asking: “Where do you want to drive to?”

Aziraphale thought about this. “Out of the city, I suppose.” Aziraphale smiled at him. “Can’t really show it off in here.”

Crowley’s mouth curled up into the exact kind of grin he knew Aziraphale did not like. Mainly because the angel had come to understand he would not enjoy what came _ after _ it.

He started the car and put it in gear. “That’s where you’re wrong, Aziraphale. I can show it off in here _ plenty_.”

Aziraphale, immediately and reflexively, grabbed onto the dashboard, looking already like he regretted not staying in his shop.

Crowley laughed, and merged into the minimal traffic at a speed that should have resulted in no less than three accidents.

It had been about four hours since Crowley bought his car. If there was ever going to be a material object he’d care obscenely for, it was going to be the machine thrumming under his fingers.

________

He did, in time, take Aziraphale out of the city. He just took the long way.

Meaning, he terrorized pedestrians in about half of London for an hour or so, before speeding towards the countryside.

“So what do you think?” Crowley yelled over the wind from the open windows.

Aziraphale had one hand braced against the ceiling and the other clutching the door handle, and if angels could get carsick, he would have been.

As it was, he was rather pale.

“I think,” he began, barely audible over the air beating around them. “I think,” louder this time. “It’s a miracle we haven’t hit anything.”

He wasn’t wrong.

Crowley laughed; he’d been doing a lot of that during the drive. “If there’s anything you can count on, it’s that I won’t be ruining this car any time soon. Anything in my way will just have to move.”

This had been the case with a mailbox, a perambulator, and an errant fence post. The mother had rescued the pram, the other, unfortunately inanimate objects had somehow managed to shift several feet to the side, just in time.

Crowley was certain that, in time, fewer things would get in his way. Practice made perfect, and all.

The car sped down a narrow country road. It was a surprisingly beautiful day, with the sun breaking through the clouds and small animals running about. They were running into the fields to warn their friends ahead to stay off the gravel.

“Could we stop, please?” Aziraphale shouted. “Or at least roll up the windows!”

Crowley looked at him a moment, eyes away from the road for almost too long, and swerved the car off to the side into a patch of shorter grass. He put the car in park and turned off the engine.

Aziraphale sighed and sank into the seat in relief.

Crowley turned to him, elbow on the back of the bench and his head resting in his hand, leather creaking as he shifted. Aziraphale fussed with his waistcoat. He pulled an errant leaf out of his hair. Crowley grew a smile that warmed, gooey and soft like dough.

Aziraphale glanced at him, turned back to his slightly rumpled clothes, then registered the expression and faced Crowley fully.

“You’ve got a...look on your face,” he said.

Crowley straightened. “A what?” He hadn’t realized his face had been doing anything other than sitting neutrally, waiting for Aziraphale to comment beyond variations of “slow down.”

“A _ look_,” Aziraphale repeated, with slightly more emphasis.

There might have been a smile. But he’d been smiling all day, in all sorts of ways, mostly due to his car and sometimes due to the way people were reacting to his car suddenly appearing in front of them.

“What _ kind _ of look?”

Aziraphale studied him. “It’s gone now. But I’m not sure, you don’t make it much.”

Crowley’s brows pulled together. “I’ve made it before then?”

“I think so.” Aziraphale looked as though he was struggling to remember specifically when he’d seen it, but was also fairly sure he had, at some point, in the last several millennia.

Crowley, however, was significantly less sure. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

He sat back in his seat, watching the grass sway in the breeze. Aziraphale appeared to drop whatever it was he had been saying, and looked out the windshield with him. They sat in comfortable silence.

Crowley liked that about their Arrangement. You know someone for long enough, being around them becomes like second nature. You could sit there, doing your own thing, and they could be doing theirs, and that was that. You didn’t have to try to make conversation. You could just exist, and that was fine.

In the deep recesses of his mind Crowley faintly registered that this meant something. Something rather significant.

He didn’t bother trying to figure out what it was, because it was too nice a day out to deal with that kind of deep introspection.

He opened the door to stretch his legs.

“It really is a nice car,” Aziraphale said, softly, after a while.

Crowley smiled, eyes closed and head back. “Knew you’d come around, angel.”

Aziraphale hummed. “Your driving, however...” he started, but there was no bite to it.

The smile turned to a smirk. “Better than yours.”

“I don’t drive.”

The smirk widened. “Exactly.”

Crowley couldn’t see him, but he could tell Aziraphale was shaking his head. Technically, Crowley had only driven enough times not to immediately stall a car until this morning, and Aziraphale knew that. The Bentley dealer hadn't though.

He'd gotten the hang of it well enough, he thought.

He opened his eyes and swiveled his head around to face Aziraphale. “They’ve outdone themselves, this time, haven’t they? No more horses. Who would’ve thought?”

“I think that’s exactly the point,” Aziraphale said, looking at him. He’d sprawled in the seat a bit, hands folded over his stomach. “They thought, and now here we are.”

Crowley brought his head back up to face the roof of the car. “I think this might be my favorite thing they’ve thought of to date. _ No more horses_, Aziraphale. Just this beautiful machine.”

He gestured to the car around them as wide as he could without hitting Aziraphale in the face.

Aziraphale had to dodge his hand anyway. “I’m glad it makes you happy, my dear.”

Crowley withdrew his arms and raised his head to look at Aziraphale. The angel was smiling at him. Crowley blinked.

It could have been a throwaway platitude, as those types of phrases tended to be, but Crowley could tell that this was an exceedingly _ genuine _statement. Aziraphale was usually more or less genuine as a rule, but he really meant it this time, and not just as a symptom of his angelic sensibilities.

Something about that made whatever musculature was housed in Crowley’s knees inexplicably take a short holiday. He both liked the feeling and absolutely hated it, and absolutely did not want Aziraphale to know about whatever it was.

“Thank you,” he tried, after a moment.

Aziraphale nodded once, still smiling. “You’re welcome.”

Crowley wasn’t all that sure what to do with himself, now.

He eventually settled on more driving. Aziraphale was right, after all. It _ did _ make him happy. Odd thing, for a demon to get happiness from anything other than general misfortune, but if he was going to be stationed here until the End Of All Things, whenever that was, Crowley figured he was allowed to enjoy himself. As long as he did it somewhat quietly, and in a way that downstairs would never find out.

Not that they paid all that much attention, in any case. He got his work done, and that’s all that mattered.

He shuffled until he was sitting properly in the driver’s seat, knees be damned, and draped an arm over the steering wheel in an attempt at casual that he was slowly succeeding with. “Well, we didn’t come out here just to sit around. Let’s get going. Whole day ahead of us.”

He gestured out the windshield at the sun.

Aziraphale appeared to brace himself against the back of the seat and inhaled deeply. He looked at his pocket watch. It was nearing four.

“Let’s do the Ritz for dinner after,” he responded, in a somewhat resigned tone that said he might be agreeing to more driving, but there also might be some white-knuckling during the process, and Crowley would owe him one. “Say about six?”

Aziraphale could have insisted Crowley take him back immediately, and it would have been reasonable, given it had already been about three hours since they left and this was clearly not quite what he thought of as a good time. But he was letting Crowley have his fun, for whatever reason, and Crowley appreciated it, far more than he would ever let on.

This was not helping his knees at all. Crowley discretely shook his legs out as much as he could while trapped in the footwell.

“Six is fine,” he nodded, and focused instead on the prospect of at least an hour more of joy riding so he could properly operate the pedals. He put the car in gear on a grin. They weren’t too far outside the city; they had plenty of time.

The Ritz had opened in London shortly after Aziraphale had moved there, and it had quickly become their most regular and favorite meal spot, as well as the most regular and favorite meal spot of plenty of others. The restaurant was always full. Reservations were required and impossible to get, unless you were some business tycoon, or starlet, or an angel of any sort and could simply stick your names in the book at whichever time you pleased, even if you were currently speeding along the countryside and nowhere near the place. Or a phone.

Crowley peeled away from the shoulder, and as he did so, the pen on the host’s desk at the restaurant in question lifted itself up, scribbled out whoever happened to be dining at six PM, and wrote instead: _ Mr. A. Z. Fell _ and _ Mr. A. J. Crowley_.

If there was any dispute over who actually reserved the spot when they got there, Aziraphale was disarming enough that he usually took care of it. And if someone had to be angelically persuaded, well, no one had to know.

Two hours and one moderately appeased starlet later, they sat at their usual table and ate their usual meals, and if Crowley was considering all of the places he could drive _ both _of them, now, no one had to know that either.

Besides, Crowley was thinking of this through the lens of convenience, and maybe through the lens of how much fun it was to push Aziraphale’s buttons. But there were no other lenses. None at all.


	11. Forli-Cesena, Italy, 1944 A.D.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact: I'd actually planned this one before the show aired, since it's something I have close family history with and wanted to touch on. I decided to leave 1941 to the show since it was done so beautifully, and continue on with this.

They were in a small town in northern Italy, and they’d just seen a woman’s house be blown off the map.

She wasn’t in the house, of course. No one was. By a now fortunate set of circumstances she’d run out of food three days ago, and had gathered her baby and pregnant self, and trekked across town for her mother-in-law’s.

Her name was Lucia, and most of her family was going to survive the war. Her mother's house would be bombed, but her husband would escape the Nazis after telling them he needed a bathroom break. 

Many were not that lucky.

“You know,” Crowley started, sitting on the wall of the old moat. He could barely be heard over the explosions. “Somehow they still surprise me. You’d think that would’ve stopped by now.”

Aziraphale sighed. He didn’t have much to add to that, Crowley could tell. He wasn’t expecting much anyway. It’d been a long war. They were tired.

Crowley swung his leg over the wall to face him. “We barely even did anything. This was all _ them_.”

“It’s been ‘all them’ plenty of times now,” Aziraphale said. “We just happen to be here to watch. I really feel that’s the whole point of the matter.”

“What’s the point of _ us _ then? In the grand scheme of things, what _ exactly _ have we done? They don’t need us, they- ” Crowley waved his arms around. A bomb fell some 50 feet away. He pointed at it. “They do _ that_, without any prompting. Figured it all out on their own. Taking credit for it doesn’t mean _ shit _ except for head office records.”

Aziraphale looked at him, and opened his mouth. Crowley cut him off. “If you say _ ineffable_, I will push you off of this wall.”

Aziraphale just sighed again. Crowley stared at him in the dark and the flashes. He looked . . . defeated, somewhat. Crowley removed his hat and ran a hand down his face. Conflict, confusion, he’d seen those many times over the millennia. Defeat was much rarer. Aziraphale had always been far better with looking at things as “part of the plan,” and Crowley had no idea at this point if that made him of stronger stock or just straight up delusional.

It _ felt _delusional. It felt like Heavenly Propaganda. But, Crowley thought, it would be much easier to see it that way during times like this.

“Shouldn’t this be considered a win for you?” Aziraphale finally said, looking up at the sky.

Crowley sagged forward. In reality, it should be. His side will claim it as such. He looked around at the shrapnel sticking out of the buildings nearby. “I suppose.”

He didn’t sound happy about it, because he wasn’t. He should be, his job description just about required it. But it was hard, sometimes, looking at the things humans did and realizing they were far worse than anything he or his coworkers could ever come up with.

It made him start wondering exactly what he was wondering now, what the _ point _ of it all was.

Aziraphale turned to him. “I know you wouldn’t have thought of something like this, my dear.”

This could mean several things: _ I know, deep down, you are not capable, and I mean that in the best way. _ Or, _ I know this isn’t something you actually enjoy, you don’t have to say it, I know that would be dangerous. _ Or even: _ Humans will always have better imaginations than we do_.

Crowley suspected it meant all three. He wasn’t sure how he felt about that.

They sat in silence for a good long while.

They had seen war. They had seen almost every war. This one was different. Crowley had a feeling it was going to get much worse, before it got any better. Humans tended to be like that.

A bomb screamed behind them, sending rocks and metal flying. Neither of them moved. Aziraphale was staring up at the sky again.

Crowley pulled his knee up to rest his chin on it and stared at him. His heel crunched on the old stone. “You ever miss upstairs?”

“Hmm?”

“Heaven,” Crowley prompted. “Do you ever miss being up there? You wouldn’t have to see any of this up there.”

Aziraphale looked down at his hands. “I have work to do down here.”

“That’s not what I asked. I asked if you missed Heaven.”

Aziraphale opened his mouth, then closed it again. Crowley could see it in his face, the struggle of figuring out which answer was the _ right _ one.

Crowley kept talking. “I don’t miss my end. But it’s Hell. No one would miss that, no matter what happens up here. But it’s got to be hard for you, seeing all this and knowing you can’t do a damn thing about it. Nothing that really matters, anyway.”

It came out meaner than intended, and Aziraphale looked wounded. Something about that look tightened Crowley’s chest uncomfortably.

“Look, angel,” he started. He might have been apologizing, he was not sure. He hoped not. Something like that could get him in serious trouble.

“I don’t miss it,” Aziraphale interjected. Crowley sat up straighter.

“I don’t miss it,” he repeated, entirely unsure of how dangerous a statement that might be. “And I take pride in my work, no matter what it might or might not do. I want to _ help _them.”

That last bit was said bitterly, shot in Crowley’s direction with resentment that in all likelihood wasn’t really directed at him.

Crowley stared at him a few more seconds, then turned and swung his leg down to sit normally. He dropped his hands in his lap and sighed. “I’m sorry you can’t, angel.”

Aziraphale didn’t answer.

The sat on the moat wall until the bombs stopped and the sun rose, and they didn’t talk. Mostly, they wallowed, but they wallowed together, in the ineffability of it all, and that meant something Crowley couldn’t really define.

He knew he didn’t miss Hell. He didn’t miss Heaven either. But he wouldn’t like it, if he were stuck in this middle ground all alone.

He looked at Aziraphale in the early morning and thought, traitorously, that he was glad Aziraphale wanted to leave about as much as he did. He made it all bearable, in the end.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More Fun Facts: Aside from the angel and demon having existential crises, everything in this chapter takes place in a real town with a real moat wall that I have sat on several times (I was just there, too!). All the events are true and are about my grandparents. Even the part about the Nazis and the bathroom break.
> 
> My Nonna Lucia is still alive, and just turned 103.


	12. London, 1953 A.D.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Local Demon a Complete Disaster, More at 11

It was raining when they stumbled out of the party together, Crowley's arm slung around Aziraphale's shoulder, and they were giggling quite a lot.

Nothing was especially funny, except that everything was. This tended to happen while extremely drunk.

They splashed through a puddle that soaked Crowley's pant leg, and that was particularly hilarious.

"Wait, wait," Aziraphale began, disentangling himself, and attempted to open his umbrella. "S'wet."

Aziraphale always carried an umbrella with him. Since the day they'd been invented, if it looked about to rain, he'd have one. Especially if Crowley were around, because Crowley never carried one.

This was due only in part to the fact that angels and demons are perfectly capable of preventing themselves from getting a bit of rain on them, and umbrellas are a nuisance to carry. The other (larger) reason was because he knew Aziraphale would have one, and while Crowley would never admit to it he liked sharing that with him. Aziraphale would usher him under and fuss and make sure he’d get the lion’s share, because he still had the mentality that Crowley would freeze when wet.

It reminded him of Eden.

Crowley stood there, in no condition at this point to stop himself from getting thoroughly soaked through, watching Aziraphale struggle. Crowley had on what he would later vehemently deny as an extremely dopey grin, while the angel tried and failed to release the umbrella's catch.

Aziraphale was awfully endearing at the moment. Crowley did not mean "awfully" as in "very," but "awfully" as in "bad".

Or at least he would have, if he were sober.

He shook his head and made a grab for the umbrella. "Give it here."

Aziraphale shooed him and stumbled backwards in the process. Crowley stumbled after him.

"_Give it _ , angel, m' _ cold_."

And he was, but only slightly. If he played that bit up from time to time, no one had to know.

"'Course you're cold, i's raining and you're a _ snake_."

Aziraphale finally managed to get the umbrella open and shoved it over Crowley's head. He beamed proudly.

"There. Not 's good as a wing, but close enough."

They stared at each other a moment, nearly chest to chest. Crowley looked away first, down the street at the puddles.

"Shouldn't we be getting on?" He asked, slightly desperate.

"Right, right," Aziraphale nodded, drunkenly.

They slogged along in silence, after that, bumping each other as Aziraphale tried to keep Crowley under his umbrella while both were rather unsteady and walking as though straight lines had gone out of fashion.

Eventually Aziraphale gave up and hooked his arm through Crowley's, so while they still weaved they were at least weaving together, and the umbrella stayed planted more or less firmly above both of them. Occasionally, it would dip towards Crowley and hit him on the head.

Crowley tried not to sag into Aziraphale's side. He was warm, as always.

That same grin threatened to return. Crowley bit his lip hard to stop it.

By the time they'd reached the corner in front of Aziraphale's bookshop the rain had slowed, slightly, and both of them were a hair more sober than when they had set out.

But only a hair.

The thing to remember about supernatural beings was that drunkenness, for them, was always a conscious choice.

They stood shoulder to shoulder, staring up at the building in front of them. The rain sluiced down the the pitched roof in sheets to the cobbled street, pounding the hood of the Bentley and running into storm drains.

“You ever miss when it didn't rain?” Crowley asked with the kind of thoughtfulness that comes with alcohol.

“Not really, I don't think. Not sure it was not around long enough to miss it...not being around.”

Crowley sluggishly parsed that sentence together. “I guess.”

“You?”

“Probably not either, plus rain makes my job a lot easier.” He turned to Aziraphale and smiled. “People're in worse moods, when it rains.”

Aziraphale turned to him as well, rolling his eyes. “Of course _ you _ would look at it that way.”

Crowley opened his mouth to respond but shrieking laughter caught his attention, and he watched over Aziraphale's shoulder as a couple across the road stopped just beyond a street light and locked their mouths together.

Humans did that a lot, increasingly more in public as time when on. It's not that he didn't understand the desire, it wasn't hard to get your head around, more that he never empathized with it. At the moment, however, it was looking increasingly more like something he ought to try. With the angel in front of him.

The girl had her arms thrown around her lover. They were giddy as all hell, Crowley could tell, even from here. A car swished by and splashed them, and the couple laughed again before running down the street, holding hands. Crowley eyed them until they disappeared around the next corner.

He looked back down at Aziraphale.

“Huh.”

Aziraphale had, in the interim, turned his attention drunkenly back to the rain. He swiveled his head around. “Hm?”

Crowley reached out and wrapped one of Aziraphale’s wet curls around his finger, right by his temple. Aziraphale smiled, though rather confusedly.

“My hair is rather wet, isn'it? Been dripping into my collar since we left.”

Crowley inhaled deeply, took Aziraphale’s face in both hands, and kissed him.

It was the kind of gentle, curious pressing of lips that asks for nothing else, but was still rather wonderful in and of itself. Crowley wasn't sure what to make of it, beyond the overwhelming and frankly terrifying feeling of _ rightness_.

Humans, he thought, might actually be onto something here.

He straightened. Aziraphale blinked several times.

"What was that?" He asked, a bit faint.

Crowley's hands fell down to cup Aziraphale's elbows loosely. "Something humans do, I know you've seen it. When they like someone, m'pretty sure."

Aziraphale looked even more confused than before, potentially distressed even. Crowley wasn't sure of the reason, but he thought to himself that this may not be the reaction he wanted. He frowned, slightly.

Aziraphale’s brow was now very furrowed. “Why?"

The question took Crowley off guard. He thought he answered that part. "Why do they do it?"

"No, why did _ you?_ To _ me_."

"Oh. Um.” Crowley tried to scrape his brain back together, which was both still highly inebriated and repeatedly stalling over the thought of what he'd just done. ‘Why,’ wasn’t a question he was prepared to answer.

“Curiosity I guess,” he ventured. It seemed wrong. Or at least, not totally right. “Wanted to try.”

Better, but not all the way there.

He was still holding on to Aziraphale's elbows.

"Oh." Aziraphale's face almost-fell in a similar way Crowley's did a minute before. Like he wasn't entirely happy with that answer, and was trying to hide it. Crowley didn’t understand. It was a perfectly logical answer, after all.

“Um,” Crowley said again, and finally let go. This was becoming awkward, and things hadn't been truly awkward with Aziraphale for millennia, now. Crowley didn't like it.

The silence stretched.

“...I should be going. Probably. 'S late and all.” He was unsure if leaving was a great idea, or a terrible one. He couldn’t stop staring at Aziraphale.

“Oh, um. If you're sure. Yes.” Aziraphale sounded as sure about that as Crowley did, but was he looking somewhere over Crowley's right shoulder.

Crowley backed away and tripped off the curb. His shoe submerged completely in the small lake beyond it. He attempted a wave. “Goodnight, angel.”

Aziraphale stood there staring at him, mouth slightly agape and umbrella slowly sagging to the left.

“I'll, uh, see you tomorrow, yeah? Lunch. We can do lunch. If you're up to it,” Crowley babbled on, gesticulating and still walking backwards. He bumped into his car.

“Lunch, yes,” Aziraphale sounded more confused and far away by the second.

Crowley waved once more before getting into his car and flooring it around the corner. About a block away he sobered himself up to gain better control over his vehicle, and immediately regretted the decision, as this whole situation looked so much worse without alcohol.

The next day, Crowley did not call on Aziraphale for lunch, and spent the entire time in his flat trying to figure out what on earth happened.

By the end of the week he had zero answers, several missed work opportunities, and an increasingly infuriating desire to see Aziraphale again.

He gave in around Sunday at noon, and showed up to the angel's bookshop in a rather petulant state.

Aziraphale received him as always, and they didn't talk about it. They went to lunch, and didn't talk about it, and proceeded in their regular fashion, all without mentioning anything.

It wasn't until about three weeks after the Incident, while Crowley was attempting to cause a particularly nasty traffic jam via broken signals, that he realized a potential, incredibly human, incredibly _ awful _ reason for his drunken actions.

He'd been picturing what Aziraphale's face might be when he inevitably told him about today's business venture, and realized while smiling about it that this was not a normal line of demonic thinking, and _ then _ realized he'd seen in the cinema (and, really, most works of human fiction, when he bothered with them) what it meant when one human was shown doing things while constantly thinking of another human.

He screamed, and proceeded to get drunk again, but this time resolutely without Aziraphale.

Aziraphale. He was _ supposed _ to be the enemy. Supposed to be.

This may be, Crowley thought to himself, the _ worst _ thing that has ever happened to him. By several orders of magnitude.

He wasn't even sure _ when _ it had happened, except it had, probably a long time ago too, and now here he was: several thousand years in and in love with an angel.

“I'm fucked,” he said, miserably, to an empty flat and almost empty bottle of wine.

“I'm _ so fucked,” _and there really wasn't anything else to say about it, was there? This was it. He was done for. He had no idea what to do with this new information, except down another bottle of wine and deny everything, so that's what he did.

He denied it for about 60 years, right up until he couldn't, because apocalypses don't lend themselves to that sort of thing all that well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In my mind Crowley took this long to figure it out because 1) he's an idiot and 2) he never had Aziraphale's hangups about their relationship so he just. Never thought about it all that hard.


	13. London, July 20th, 1969 A.D.

It was 3:56 in the morning, and a man was stepping on the moon.

They were sitting, squished together on a tiny couch in the back of Aziraphale's shop, eyes glued to the TV.

Aziraphale thought back, long and long ways back, to everything the human race had accomplished. How they tried so hard to understand the universe beyond them.

He felt out of breath. He felt _ awed_.

He glanced at Crowley next to him, who was watching the broadcast with his mouth half open and his eyes wide and uncovered.

They'd both taken credit for the space race portion of the cold war; Crowley's memo had stated it was to increase tensions; Aziraphale's, to relieve them. Neither of them had done much of anything to start it, but they had a bet going on which memo would end up being more accurate.

They still hadn't reached a verdict, but the humans were reaching something.

"Well, at least that settles the bet, then,” Aziraphale said, just barely above a whisper. “Clearly, I have won."

That broke Crowley out of his trance. He sputtered. "_How _ exactly, does this settle _ anything__?_ We weren't betting on who _ won _ the space race, we were betting on its _ effect._"

“I can’t see how this can have any other effect except goodness.” And hope. So much _ hope_. He could almost feel it radiating from the broadcast.

_ “That’s one small step for man,” _ crackled the TV. The voice of a man, currently on the _ moon_.

They fell silent again, watching something so big come from a tiny box, in a small room.

“I don’t believe it,” Crowley whispered after a few minutes. Another man had joined the first man, and they were walking around in the lunar dust and desolation.

“We are, quite literally, watching it happen.”

Crowley gestured to the TV. “There’s no way! They figured out how to go to _ space _ , angel,” and he sounded just as awed as Aziraphale felt, and half-way to manic. “I mean, they’ve figured out a lot of stuff I couldn’t believe over the millennia, but _ space? _ I can’t wrap my head around it. Wouldn’t put it past them to fake this for the sake of winning. Look how much _ we _ fake for winning, and that we could do, just like that.” He snapped his fingers. “And this took money and effort and _ time_.”

“_You _ fake, I do not,” Aziraphale sniffed at him.

Crowley scoffed. “Anyway. This is...this is _ bonkers_.”

“If you’re so skeptical, you could always go _ check_.”

Crowley made to move off the couch. Aziraphale’s eyes widened and he grabbed his arm.

“Please do _ not _ actually do that, my dear.”

They continued watching the TV. The men took samples. They placed a flag. The BBC host interspersed their comments with his own, and the whole world was enraptured.

Millions of people, and one angel, and one demon, watched humanity stretch beyond what all of them had ever dreamed was possible.

_ Imagination_, is what Crowley called it. A human thing. It made them so much better at _ both _ their jobs than they could ever hope to be.

After a while, when they’d relaxed back into the cushions, Crowley said “Nah, you know what, they definitely did this. They went to the _ moon_. They went to the moon so they could win. That sounds pretty human to me.”

Aziraphale put a hand on his knee on impulse and didn’t think about it. He was too absorbed. “They went to the moon so they could see what it was like. They went because they _ could_. And they could because they tried.”

“We should visit sometime,” Crowley said, voice soft. _ Wistful_. Aziraphale remembered, centuries ago, Crowley telling him how he remembered making the stars. “I want to see it. I want to see what all their effort got them.”

“Name a time, my dear,” Aziraphale said.

Crowley sank further into the cushions. Aziraphale’s hand was still on his knee.

“They’ll be gone by tomorrow. We can go then. No one will notice any miracles out of place, not when this just happened.”

Aziraphale looked at the TV, and then he looked out the tiny window in the back of his shop. He could see the moon from here, bright and white, and it was truly something, to think that there were humans there, right this second.

He wanted to see it too. He wanted to see their touch on everything God made. Their touch ruined but their touch also _ created_, and that was really the point of it all.

And what better person, to see it all with, than the one that had been there since the beginning. Since the first touch. The first small step. The first giant leap.

Aziraphale beamed at Crowley. “Then we’ll go tomorrow.”

Crowley’s answering smile was small and bright like the moon outside.

They finished watching the broadcast, leaning together on the tiny couch. Crowley’s head ended up on Aziraphale’s shoulder. And Aziraphale didn’t move his hand from Crowley’s knee.

The moon disappeared with the sun, and they disappeared with the moon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I got the idea for this after they watched fireworks, and of course, it was the 50th anniversary this year.


	14. London, 1980 A.D.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This started out as a complete joke with my friend about how they would absolutely behave exactly like those two old muppets, but then it turned into Aziraphale Suffers with Gay Feelings During Not-A-Date #5456

Crowley was _ obnoxious _ at the theater. He insulted everything, and did it loud enough the surrounding patrons could hear. Sometimes Aziraphale wondered why he brought him.

This wasn't entirely fair. They were both equally obnoxious. Crowley just started it.

But while Aziraphale would readily admit this about his demonic counterpart it would be somewhat of a lost cause to get him to admit it about himself. And he would _ never _ admit that engaging with Crowley's behavior was, he believed, the best part of watching a performance.

Aziraphale had been attending theater for hundreds of years. After a while, unless it was a truly exceptional bit of acting, even plays he adored got a tad stale.

Maybe not so much stale, as, if the performance wasn’t perfect, Aziraphale would get appropriately annoyed. If others could do it far better, what was stopping whoever was currently on stage?

Currently, they were watching yet another production of _ Hamlet_. The acting was dreadful, in Aziraphale’s opinion. Crowley hadn’t made it a hit only for it to suffer this kind of treatment.

Crowley was also half asleep beside him, sliding progressively lower in his seat and drooping slightly towards Aziraphale’s shoulder. Aziraphale elbowed him. He startled upright and glared.

“I’ve seen this with you hundreds of times, angel, you can’t blame me for being _ bored_,” he hissed.

Aziraphale, eyes still on the stage, whispered, “You didn’t have to come.”

Crowley grumbled something that sounded suspiciously like _ but you asked me to. _Aziraphale ignored it and ignored the smile it wanted to force on his face.

After a completely silent 15 more minutes, Aziraphale glanced sideways. It was unusual, for Crowley to not complain about _ something _. Or encourage Aziraphale to complain. And there was quite a lot to complain about, this time.

Instead, Crowley was slumped in his seat, arms crossed, looking like he was imagining the stage opening up and swallowing all the actors. Most likely there was fire. And screaming.

The Hamlet on stage dropped his blade. Crowley flashed a grin.

Aziraphale elbowed him, _ again _ . “_Really_, my dear?”

The lady a row behind them leaned forward and _ shushed_.

Aziraphale watched as Hamlet’s actor botched more and more scenes. This was, truly, awful. And Crowley continued to say absolutely nothing, which was possibly worse.

This lasted another 10 minutes at most, at which point, with no prompting whatsoever, no starting jab, Aziraphale opened his mouth. Out of it fell: “I truthfully do not think I have ever _ seen _ a worse Hamlet. All his lines, every one of them. _ Flat.” _

He barely realized he was even speaking. Aziraphale just couldn’t take it anymore. “Does he know what emotion is? I’m not sure he does,” he continued, slightly louder than he probably should have been.

He turned to Crowley only to see he was already facing him fully, a wide, snake grin on his face. Aziraphale paled.

Before Crowley could say anything, the same woman leaned forward, hushed and angry and straight in Aziraphale’s face. “If you do not silence yourselves I will have you and your friend _ removed_.”

Crowley leaned over to her, feigned complete mortification, and whispered in a tone that suggested Aziraphale’s behavior was the worst possible thing someone could ever do at the theater, as if the performance below hadn’t already claimed that title. Aziraphale’s mouth dropped open.

“I _ apologize_,” he started, all wringing hands, the _ bastard._ “My friend gets so passionate about this play. But I don’t know what’s gotten into him. We’ll be quiet from now on, I can _ assure _ you.”

She nodded, seemingly appeased. “See that you are,” she told him, and glared once more at Aziraphale before sitting back.

Aziraphale turned back to Crowley, halfway to sputtering. Crowley continued to grin and shook his head.

“Knew I was rubbing off on you, angel,” he said, barely audible, and turned to face the stage for the remainder of the play.

Aziraphale knew, deep down inside, Crowley would never let him live this down. Ever.

________

Aziraphale sulked out of the theater about two hours later with Crowley trailing behind him, trying desperately not to laugh, and failing.

“I can’t believe you _ started _ it this time!” He said, utterly delighted. “You always wait for _ me _to do it. Less culpability that way.”

Aziraphale huffed.

He walked up beside him and swung an arm around his shoulder, twirling his hand as he spoke. “I mean, I can’t blame you, it was horrible. _ Horrible_. Shakespeare would have cried. But you couldn’t even hold it in. _ I _ held it in, and you _ didn’t_.”

The smugness was overwhelming.

Aziraphale stiffly disentangled himself, or tried to. Crowley just slipped around to the other side of him. “You’ve _ quite _ made your point.”

Crowley laughed again. “You don’t have to get so put out, finally getting the other side of things. You can’t blame me for rubbing it in a little.”

He couldn’t, and that was the real trouble. He’d never expect anything different from Crowley, except for him to act like himself, and this was who Crowley was. But _ beyond _ that, Aziraphale had done the exact same thing, over and over, to Crowley, for many, many things.

He just usually sounded more polite about it. _ High and mighty, _ Crowley called it, when he was feeling particularly argumentative. But usually he just rolled his eyes and said “Yeah, yeah,” or “Sure, angel.”

Sometimes, there was even a smile in there.

Aziraphale made a frustrated gesture with his hands. “It’s _ just _ \- _ Hamlet _ -” he started, then thought better of it and aborted the sentence.

Crowley rubbed the shoulder he was draped over and said, “Now, now angel, don’t you think you’re looking at this the wrong way?”

“Looking at _ what_, the wrong way? Was there a _ right _ way to look at that performance?” He snapped, and immediately regretted it.

Crowley lost it next to him. He stopped walking, bent over his knees, and practically hung off Aziraphale. “I only meant,” he said between hissing laughs, and his words were only intelligible due to the fact that Aziraphale had been around him for so long, “that maybe _ you’ve _ rubbed off on _ me_.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“I kept quiet,” he grinned, straightening up and gathering himself. There was still something snake-like in his expression. Aziraphale didn’t trust it. “For once.”

Aziraphale squinted at him. “You did. You never do. Why did you.” There was no question mark at the end of his sentence. It was less a question, and more a demand for an answer.

Crowley shrugged with his free arm. “Appreciation of the arts?”

Aziraphale _ glared_.

“Oh, alright. I wanted to see what _ you _ would do.”

“You _ serpent!” _ Aziraphale threw his arm off and stalked forward. Crowley shoved his hands in his pockets and sauntered after him, entirely unbothered. “You’re unbelievable. No, that’s not right, this is _ perfectly _ believable, you are _ incorrigible_.” Once Aziraphale had gotten this ruffled he tended to lose track of his mouth, except when it came to not swearing. “I don’t know _ why _ I lo-”

Ah. Well.

Aziraphale found his mouth rather quickly, again, and he slammed it closed. His face flamed. He glanced backwards.

Crowley was still fighting a grin. “Why you…?” he urged Aziraphale to continue.

“_Let _ you come with me,” Aziraphale finished, after a moment, but there wasn’t the bite to it that he had before.

Crowley raised an eyebrow, skeptical, but seemed to accept it, because it was exactly the kind of protesting Crowley had come to expect from him.

“You don’t _ let _ me, you _ ask _ me,” he pointed out, helpfully.

Aziraphale sputter again. “Either way! I don’t know why. You’re terrible. Absolutely _ terrible_.”

Crowley caught up and fell into step beside him. “You enjoy it,” he insisted, smugness waning by the end of the statement, rather strangely. It almost sounded like a question. _ Almost_.

Aziraphale didn’t dwell on it, because he had a bigger problem. Crowley was right. Aziraphale _ did _ enjoy it. Far more than he should. He did more than that, even. He, possibly, loved every second he spent with Crowley. However frustrating those seconds might be.

He, possibly, just loved Crowley. Which was exactly what he’d been about to say, rather unfortunately.

This was an extremely uncomfortable truth he’d realized, during an incident in WWII involving some Nazis, that Aziraphale looked back on with very extreme ends of the stomach-altering emotional spectrum. On the one hand, it filled him with an out of control, light fluttering. On the other, it sank hard and cold in the bottom of his gut.

Both of these feelings brought with them varying degrees of nausea.

To make matters even more complicated, in the years since then, the more Aziraphale thought about it, the clearer it became that this had been the truth for a long, long time.

Millennia, even. He didn’t really know. All he knew was that somewhere along the timeline of the Earth, he, an angel, had fallen in love with the demon it was his job to oppose.

He _ had _been aware his feelings toward Crowley were not the kind he should have, he wasn’t that dense, but beyond that he’d never really defined them. At first he didn’t know how to. Later, it was less not having an adequate description as completely denying one existed so well that it was a great imitation of the former condition. Practically flawless.

Until WWII, when everything had exploded, literally and figuratively, and Aziraphale had been unable to piece it all back together.

Mostly, he tried to ignore it. It was pointless otherwise. He had duties to Heaven, Crowley had duties to Hell, and Aziraphale had no real surety that he… there _ was _ that time, in 1953… but, then again… Anyway. No point. The whole mess was just. Well.

A _ mess_.

It was messy, and human, and so very difficult to deal with, and if Heaven ever found out they’d drag him straight back, and who knows what else.

He'd never see Crowley again, that's for certain.

He had no idea how Heaven _ could _ find out, but it was the _ principle _ of the thing. Heaven ran on principles, and he was breaking several of them, constantly.

His only saving grace, Aziraphale thought resolutely, was that nothing would ever come of it, and if maybe he ignored it long enough, it might just go away.

He glanced over at Crowley again.

Aziraphale was really starting to think he was wrong about the whole “going away” bit. It felt _ permanent_, being with him. Feeling like this about it.

Crowley had always been permanent. That might have been the source of it all.

But Aziraphale had met other demons, on occasion. He didn’t think if any of _ them _ were permanent, he’d feel the same way.

“Are you going to sulk the whole night?” Crowley asked him, since it’d been about a block and Aziraphale hadn’t said anything more. Crowley looked at his watch. “How about we go to a very late dinner. My treat.”

Aziraphale turned to him. Crowley glanced sideways, then shrugged. “Make it up to you,” he said, quietly.

No, Aziraphale thought to himself. He most definitely would not feel the same.


	15. The Warlock Years

_ Godfathers_.

It implied some things, that. Crowley focused mostly on the implication that they were, truly, on their own side of their own making, something he’d been considering as fact for a while anyway.

The plan, when they’d come up with it, was to wait until the boy grew old enough that their influence would matter. Babies and toddlers wouldn’t understand good and evil, but five year olds could speak and reason, and they kept track of the years until the time came, and then they kept track of the estate.

They needed job openings. They needed people to fail to apply to said openings.

There were two, currently. Crowley and Aziraphale had sabotaged every other candidate’s application, in some way, until the Dowlings were desperate, and then they appeared. A Godsend.

Well, only in the gardener’s case.

Crowley had initially objected to Aziraphale being the gardener because he was terrible with plants. But he wasn’t much better with small children in the long term, so Crowley gave it up quickly and assumed the role of Nanny.

Azriaphale liked babies on principle, and older kids. Toddlers, up until the age of about 8, were completely lost on him and far too messy. Crowley liked them at that age because they were, essentially, chaos housed in very portable vessels. If you went into it with that attitude, dealing with them was both easy and hilarious.

Crowley tended to encourage most of their more wild behaviors, when given the chance. Those chances, over the millennia, had been very few and far in between, but Crowley was looking forward to this one.

He hadn’t changed form in a long, long while anyway. This should be fun, even if Aziraphale would most likely destroy the garden without several nondescript miracles.

Crowley walked into the back room of the bookshop the day after the last nanny applicant fell suddenly, terribly ill, to see Aziraphale messing with his teeth, and tried not to laugh.

“So, angel,” she said, leaning on her umbrella. “What do you think?”

Aziraphale turned from the mirror to look at her fully. “Lovely, my dear. I would hire you in an instant.”

Crowley grinned, pleased and fiendish.

_______

Warlock became obnoxious as he grew. There was a sweetness under there, but he was also stubborn and spoiled.

Crowley had become very fond of him. Unfortunate, really. She wasn’t going to be his nanny forever.

But for now she was enjoying her time with him. Warlock was 7, and gripping her hand tightly as they walked through the park. Crowley had caught him throwing pebbles at the ducks, and then caught him lying about it.

Crowley bought him an ice cream.

“Nanny?” Warlock asked, getting chocolate all over his face.

“Yes, dear?”

“Brother Francis says it’s not nice to throw things. But it’s fun. Are things that aren’t nice always fun?”

Crowley smiled. “A lot of times, yes. They’re very fun. And you deserve to have fun, Warlock. What have I said about listening to Brother Francis?”

“That I shouldn’t.”

“That’s right, dear. Listen to me, not to him.”

Warlock nodded and fell silent.

They were crossing the street when Warlock spoke again. He was always full of questions. Crowley liked that about him.

“Nanny? Are you and Brother Francis married?”

Except when he asked questions like _ that_.

Crowley stopped walking, right in the middle of the crosswalk, and Warlock kept going. He was jerked backwards by her hold on his hand, and almost lost his ice cream.

A car horn snapped Crowley out of it. She half dragged Warlock out of the street.

“_Nanny_,” Warlock whined. She always answered his questions.

Crowley pulled him to the side of the corner, out of the way, and crouched down to his level. She opened her mouth, failed to speak, and then tried again.

“_Where _ did you get an idea like _ that?_”

Warlock thought about this. His ice cream was dripping all over his hand. Crowley was going to let him track it through the house, along with the mud on his shoes.

“You argue a lot. And you always tell me not to listen to him. And he always tells me not to listen to you.”

“Yes,” Crowley prompted, lost. She thought she’d had a decent handle on the concept of marriage.

“Mommy and Daddy do that! They argue, and they tell me ‘listen to me,’ and _ they’re _ married. They said that’s what married people _ do_.”

Crowley stared at him. She couldn’t go around teaching Warlock healthy marriage practices.

“Well. Yes. Married people _ do _ do that. But Brother Francis and I are _ not _ married.”

Warlock looked very puzzled. “But you just said - ”

Crowley stood up and grabbed onto his hand again, steering them in the direction of home. “Not _ only _ married people argue, Warlock. Lots of people argue. And that’s all I am saying on the subject.”

Warlock protested the entire walk home, and Crowley put her foot down, and refused to answer any more questions.

_______

They would meet outside of work hours, to discuss their progress. They couldn’t really do that on the clock.

Buses. Art museums. Concerts. Cafes. Nondescript places. They would show up, talk about Warlock, talk about the apocalypse, talk about a lot of things. Many of them were unrelated to the plan, but neither of them pointed that out.

Crowley liked meeting at concerts best. She was fairly certain Azirapahle did too. They couldn’t discuss anything, at a concert, until the event was over.

She wouldn’t admit this, but it was nice to have an evening out without business getting in the way, until the last possible second.

_______

Warlock was past the age of needing naps in the afternoon. Crowley missed that, because it gave her some peace, but now that he was older, he was also easily distracted by cartoons.

Crowley would plunk him down in front of the TV some days during lunch, like she did today, so she could have lunch with Aziraphale.

She wandered out into the garden, leftover sandwiches on a plate and a pitcher of lemonade in her hand. There was a small metal table on a stone patio, some ways from the house.

Aziraphale met her there, when he heard the clinks of glass on metal.

Crowley relaxed into her chair. It was a nice, breezy day outside. With any luck they would have many more years of breezy days, because Warlock wouldn’t burn up all the air.

Something about that thought nagged at her.

“You think he’s a bit...normal?” She asked Aziraphale.

“Well, he should be, wasn’t that the point of all this?” Aziraphale dabbed his mouth. “I think he’s wonderfully normal.”

Crowley looked towards the house, putting down her sandwich. “I guess.”

They fell into silence. Birds chirped around them. The breeze switched directions. Crowley took her hat off.

"Oh, my dear,” Aziraphale piped up, after a minute. “Hold still now." He was reaching for her.

Crowley froze, not because Aziraphale asked her to, but because that was the only reaction she was capable of having.

Aziraphale's fingers pushed into Crowley's hair over her ear before pulling away, something pinched between two fingers. A leaf, maybe.

"You had something in your hair," he said, smiling, and let the wind carry it away. He went back to eating his food.

Crowley forgot about her sandwich.

_______

Warlock turned 10, and Mrs. Dowling decided she didn’t need a nanny anymore. She explained this to Crowley while saying that she was part of the family, welcome to visit any time, and that Warlock would miss her.

Warlock had his face in a portable gaming device, but sure.

Crowley nodded, walked out to the garden, and found Aziraphale. Aziraphale looked intensely relieved for the distraction.

“What on _ Earth _ are you doing?” Crowley asked him, instead of saying it was time to go, because the rose bush Aziraphale was tending looked...angry.

Aziraphale stared helplessly at the roses. “I can honestly say I have no idea, my dear. I was trying to encourage the poor thing to grow, but it seems to have _ rebelled _ somehow.”

Crowley glared at the bush. The anger seeped out of it immediately. She’d taken to yelling at them, when Aziraphale wasn’t in earshot.

“Forget about the bushes, we’re done here,” she said, after a few of the roses strained to be perkier.

“We’re what?”

“Fired, Aziraphale, I was fired.”

“You were _ what?” _ Aziraphale stared at the windows behind Crowley and looked like he wanted to give the Dowlings a piece of his mind.

“Angel. Calm down. These weren’t _ real _ jobs.”

“I _ know _ that, but you’re so fond of the boy, and he’s not even 11 yet!”

Crowley sputtered. “He’s 10, close enough! What could a year without us do? And you’re fond of him too, don’t pretend like I didn’t notice.”

_ Godfathers_, indeed.

Aziraphale looked unimpressed, then glanced sadly back at the window for another minute. “She just, let you go, then?”

“She wants to raise him herself, now, I think,” Crowley shrugged, a tad bitter.

Aziraphale looked even _ more _ unimpressed, but this time with the Dowlings. “Well, we did all the heavy lifting already,” he sniffed. “I’ll grab my things.”

Crowley waited by the car while Aziraphale resigned. Technically only Crowley was fired, but there was no point in Aziraphale staying here. That would go against the plan.

“Nanny?”

Warlock appeared on the other side of the Bentley.

“I’m gonna miss you,” he said, and he looked genuinely sad. Crowley felt _ soft_.

“I’ll miss you too, dear,” she said, and walked around to pull him into a hug.

Crowley was still hugging him when Aziraphale returned, who regarded the whole affair with an expression about as soft as Crowley felt. Crowley tried very hard to ignore it.

Warlock looked at him. “Brother Francis? Are you leaving too?”

“Unfortunately I am, Master Warlock. It’s time.”

Warlock hugged him too, and then ran off to the house.

“I suppose I _ will _ miss that boy,” Aziraphale said, watching the door open and slam shut. Crowley knew Warlock wouldn’t wipe his feet, and he smiled at the thought.

“We did a good job, I think. We’ll keep checking on him, in the next year. He should start getting his powers. He should have started getting them already, but there’s still time.”

Aziraphale nodded. “Mission almost accomplished. Now - ” and his teeth shrank back to normal size while he ducked into the car. “I am absolutely famished. How about we go for some lunch?”

Crowley put her umbrella and bag in the back seat. “Ritz?”

“Of course. I do believe a table opened up, just now. And will still be there when we arrive.”


	16. The Week of the Notpocalypse

Crowley watched Aziraphale's performance and thought, "_Never again, I am never letting him perform magic _ again_. _"

Immediately after a smaller, traitorous voice reminded him, "_Yes you will, you'll just help him next time. _"

A second, even more irritating voice sniped, after 3:00 hit and there was no hellhound, "_If there even _ is _ a next time._"

________

Aziraphale watched the tension bleed from the poor girl's shoulders the second Crowley called him _ angel_, called him what he _ always _called him. Aziraphale knew what she thought. He could see it in her face, a relieved set to her mouth. He wasn't oblivious to humans' interpretation of things.

It made him wonder, how the shape of that word had changed over the millennia. If it had at all. Was Crowley saying it differently? Did it have more warmth or did he just _ want _it to, and would it really mean anything, if it did?

Crowley had used it since almost the beginning. It sounded so familiar because it was, that was all.

Aziraphale got in the car.

_________

Crowley tried to avoid all calls from Hell, whatsoever. He wasn’t that successful.

He had to find the boy. _ He had to find the boy_.

He had no idea how he would.

_________

Aziraphale poured over the Book. Minutes, hours, days passed without him noticing.

_ He found the boy_.

He had no idea what to do.

_________

Crowley watched the one place on this entire Earth he ever bothered to think of as a home burn to the ground.

No, that was wrong, it wasn’t the bookshop that was home, it was Aziraphale. And that was _ worse_.

Crowley drove off while loss caved in on him. He’d never known loss this heavy.

In any case, the world was ending, so he wouldn’t have to know it, much longer.

_________

Aziraphale desperately tried to find a body to use. And he tried to focus on that, _ only _ on that. But he couldn’t help but picture Crowley’s face, and think of all the times he’d told him _ no_.

He should have said yes. He should have always said _ yes_.

________

Crowley gripped his steering wheel, and Aziraphale gripped handle bars, and they fought tooth and nail to get to Tadfield.

They had to stop it.

They had to find each other.

If they couldn’t stop it, at least they’d be together, when it all ended.


	17. Saturday, The Notpocalypse

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just about there! I won't be posting next Wednesday due to the holiday, so check in next Friday for the final chapter! Thank you to everyone who has come back to read each week <3

The world was ending.

They both thought they were going to die, but not in the way that would spur either of them into something properly fitting the occasion, like some sort of declaration, or a large confession.

They could perceive the thought, the same way one perceives a bee repeatedly bumping a window. You know it’s there, but it’s not quite in your space yet. Dying is difficult for anything to wrap its brain around, but for something like an angel it’s even more of a foreign concept. It was not something they had to ever really think about. Not like humans. Humans faced mortality every day.

There just wasn’t the time for it to sink in, even if they _ were _ human and more used to the concept, and then the world _ wasn’t _ ending, and everything that might have gotten churned up sank back to the bottom again.

The world wasn’t ending, so an angel and a demon who had been around since _ before _ drank wine and contemplated _ after_, because _ after _ wasn’t supposed to exist, and therefore merited some thought.

Thought, and alcohol.

_______

Aziraphale stayed the night in Crowley’s flat, because...Because.

He protested, of course. He felt obligated to. It was ingrained over 6000 years at this point, the token “I can’t” that was sometimes not a token at all, and other times code for “More than anything, I’d like to, but saying so is too much.” It always bubbled out of him when things had gone a bit pear-shaped and he desperately needed to make sense of them, and subsequently found that what made the most sense was Crowley.

Crowley always made the most sense. He’d gone back and forth with how well he dealt with that, over the centuries.

There were a lot of things swirling around his head at the moment, and as always, Crowley was standing next to him, a singular constant. Aziraphale stopped protesting after stepping onto the bus.

He had nowhere else to go and, he was finally letting himself think, nowhere else he’d rather be, anyway.

They discussed Agnes’ prophecy, squished next to each other on hard seats, as the bus rumbled towards a city it was not supposed to be rumbling towards. After that, they were silent.

The bus stopped right in front of Crowley’s building, though it did so rather confusedly. The driver blinked rapidly out of the windshield as Crowley stood. He looked back at Aziraphale for only a second, a silent question in the set of his shoulders. He was, maybe, hesitant.

The silence that had formed around them was heavy and thick. Almost comforting. He wouldn't break it by asking again.

Aziraphale wouldn’t break it by saying no.

He followed Crowley out of the bus and onto the sidewalk.

Crowley stared up at his building for a moment, before he placed a hand on Azirphale’s back, right between his shoulder blades. Aziraphale sagged into it. He pressed close to Crowley’s side. In the silence and the night it was easy to let go of everything. It was easy to just _ be_.

He was tired.

Crowley’s apartment was clean flat surfaces everywhere, as it always was, except for his plants, and his couch, which was a bit too worn and a bit too soft to fit with the style of everything else. It had always been that way, and Aziraphale knew it was entirely for his benefit. This spot, more than any other spot in the apartment, was carved out for him. He fit there, on this couch, perfectly.

He fit into all of Crowley’s spaces far better than he wanted to acknowledge at times, but there were certain areas he knew Crowley had made specifically so he’d feel like he belonged there. He’d never admit to knowing, just as Crowley would never admit to having made them in the first place, but as Aziraphale sank into the cushions, a feeling of home sank into him.

He stared up at the ceiling.

His thoughts were ghosting at the barest edge of something, a bubble of questions he’d almost thought and almost voiced for so very long.

_ What next? What more? Do I challenge the status quo? _

_ Can the universe take more of that? _

_ Can I? _

They drifted away in their bubble, down into the dark. Safe in the quiet.

Crowley came back from the kitchen with two wine glasses and two bottles. One in his hand, uncorked, and one under his arm. He set them down on the glass coffee table with several _ clinks_.

He poured two glasses, handed one to Aziraphale, and sat with a sort of sigh you’d expect from something deflating. He collapsed, slowly, into the corner of the couch, resting his glass on the arm and his other hand on his thigh. There wasn’t the space between them, to set it down on the cushions.

“You think they’ll fall for it?” Crowley asked, shoving the silence away with each word like kicking at a quilt. Reluctantly, and with a bit of a struggle.

Aziraphale sipped his wine. “If Agnes is to be believed.”

Crowley dropped his head backwards and made a noise like he wanted to roll his eyes but was too tired to do so. “She was right about everything else. Even my _ car_.”

“I really am sorry about that. I know how much it meant to you.” Aziraphale hovered a hand just above the one Crowley was resting on his thigh. It stayed there, suspended, for a few seconds, before he let it fall.

Crowley twitched, very slightly, before collapsing even further into the couch, shifting a bit away from the corner and towards Aziraphale. Aziraphale left his hand where it was.

“Thank you,” Crowley said, after a moment. “I’m sorry about your books.”

They sipped their wine.

“Thank you,” Aziraphale said, several minutes later.

Crowley rolled his head over to face him. He didn’t say anything, but he did remove his hand from under Aziraphale’s, to take his glasses off, and drop them in his lap.

Aziraphale studied them, temple piece held loosely between two fingers, before looking at Crowley’s eyes again. They were exhausted. There were no whites left. He wasn’t trying so hard, at the moment, to be something he wasn’t.

Aziraphale was struck with the knowledge that he was, possibly, the only being in existence that was _ allowed _to see Crowley this way.

He looked down at his own lap at the thought, at his wine glass, at the table in front of them. The opened and unopened wine bottles. A book, that he hadn’t noticed before.

Aziraphale picked it up. It had a thin film of dust on it; it’d been on the table for a while and not touched. It wasn’t a first edition, it wasn’t from his shop, but it _ was _one of his favorites.

This, like the couch, was placed there for him. Aziraphale looked over at Crowley. His eyes were closed, the wine glass drooping forward. Aziraphale placed his own on the table and reached over to catch Crowley’s before it fell.

Crowley stirred and sat upright at the slight brush of their hands and clutched at air, looking for the glass, before turning to look at Aziraphale.

“Must have nodded off,” he said.

“You look very tired, my dear,” Aziraphale answered. He settled back with the book. “You should rest.”

Crowley peered at him, turning so his elbow perched on the back of the couch and his hand cradled his head. “You look tired too, angel.”

Aziraphale hummed, running a finger along the book’s spine.“Do you mind if I read?” He asked, in lieu of an answer.

Crowley waved his other hand. “By all means.” _ That’s what it’s there for, _ he didn’t say. But Aziraphale heard it in his voice.

Aziraphale opened the book in his lap, and began to read. He began to read out loud, to Crowley.

He could feel Crowley stiffen next to him, but he didn’t look up. He continued reading, and slowly Crowley relaxed, sagging forward, sagging toward Aziraphale.

He’d read to Crowley before. It was something unspoken they did, when it seemed like the world had gone madder than ever, when they needed something simple, when they were tired or stressed or just craving a bit of peace. Sometimes there was no reason for it other than Aziraphale loved books, and he loved sharing them with Crowley, and Crowley was always, always, perfectly happy to indulge.

Crowley continued to curl beside him, leftover mannerisms of a limbless body, and Crowley was most like the Garden when he was exhausted. He slipped an arm through Aziraphale’s elbow and wound it there, back towards his own chest, neck drooping sideways so his head was settled on Aziraphale’s shoulder. Long legs retracted to the couch and folded up there. Hair brushed the underside of Aziraphale’s chin.

Crowley fell asleep, curved around him, and Aziraphale kept reading. He read all night, until daybreak, until he had to shake Crowley awake with a gentle “It’s _ time_.”


	18. Monday, Two Days After The Notpocalypse

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we are!
> 
> Local Demon a complete disaster, Part 2

Crowley pulled up to the bookshop. It was early, the sun just coming up behind the building, but he knew Aziraphale would be awake, because Aziraphale didn’t like sleep as much as he did, and he also liked mornings.

Crowley could take or leave mornings. While he _ liked _ sleep, he still didn’t _ need _ it, so the whole waking up bit was never that bad for him, depending on the circumstances.

The circumstances today were that he’d never slept at all.

The world had almost ended. It hadn’t, but it almost did. And that’s the kind of close call that got you thinking. Thinking for long hours that maybe, possibly, some things shouldn’t go unsaid for all eternity, and probably should have been said already. That maybe Crowley should take care of something he’d been resolutely, purposefully ignoring for 60 odd years, and subconsciously ignoring for far, far longer.

Millennia, most likely.

He stared up at the shop from the alleyway, then glanced at his empty passenger seat. Maybe he should have brought something. Wine, chocolate, _ anything_.

He was stalling.

Crowley got out of his car.

The sign on the door was flipped to closed, as Crowley expected. He ignored it, as he always did. He did, however, open the door much gentler than he normally would have, like he was afraid of disturbing the quiet and the angel housed inside of it.

Crowley was rarely afraid of disturbing anything, so the feeling was unappreciated.

He made up for it by letting the door slam behind him.

“Aziraphale?” He called. “You in?”

He knew perfectly well he was in. He was also, somewhat, hoping he was wrong. He’d told himself he was going to take care of this, but he couldn’t really without the angel in question, and wouldn’t that be the perfect excuse to pack it in for the day.

But he was here. Crowley could feel him.

Still, Aziraphale didn’t answer right away. Crowley looked around the bookshop from the doorway and pictured it on fire, and immediately shook his head. He didn’t want to think about that. That fear. That loss that never happened.

It had been, frankly, the worst few hours of Crowley’s existence. And here he was, basically about to admit to it.

More or less.

“Crowley?” Aziraphale called from the back room, pulling him back to the restored present. Not burned, not discorporated. _ Here_. “It’s awfully early for you, isn’t it?”

_ Here _ made Crowley smile as much as it made him want to immediately turn around and leave.

Aziraphale appeared between a few shelves. “Did you need something, my dear?”

_ You_, was a perfectly reasonable answer to that. Would get everything out of the way in a single syllable.

Crowley opened his mouth. The word got stuck.

Aziraphale studied him. “Are you alright?”

He didn’t wait for an answer before his eyes widened and he paled. “Did you hear from downstairs? Did it not work?”

Crowley snapped himself out of it. “What? No. With our performances they won’t bother us for a good long time. They were _ terrified _ of you, angel.”

Aziraphale smiled like the rising sun outside, focusing it at him like a solar flare, and Crowley just about burned up. “I don’t think they’ve ever been even close to terrified of me.”

“Well,” he said, a bit less dry than he wanted. More like a wet piece of paper. “They are now. Congratulations.”

“And the same to you. I do believe we deserve some peace.” Aziraphale nodded to himself, then he gestured towards his back room. “Would you care for some tea? I was just making my morning cup. Your mug is still by the sink, Adam didn’t miss _ anything_, it seems.”

Crowley’s mug was one of those silly, novelty things that came as part of a pair. He’d bought them as a joke. Aziraphale had, in true fashion, completely missed that aspect and instead zeroed in on the tiny part Crowley had been trying to hide and was only minutely aware of in the first place: that it was a genuine gift for the two of them to share. And like most kitschy human things, he’d been genuinely delighted.

Crowley had been drinking out of that mug, more or less reluctantly, for about 10 years now.

It had a _ devil’s tail _ for the handle.

He finally unstuck his feet from the floor. “Sure,” he agreed, as if he'd be capable of doing anything else, and followed Aziraphale into the back.

Twenty minutes and two steaming cups between them later, Crowley stared into his half drunk tea and tried to glare it into saving him. He still hadn’t said anything.

The tea was unresponsive.

“Are you _ sure _ there’s nothing bothering you?” Aziraphale asked again, the bastard.

Crowley was about to say “For the _ last time_, angel, _ no,_” before realizing that was stupid.

All of this, was stupid. _ He _ was being stupid.

He’d come here for a reason. He’d even been somewhat confident about it, at around four in the morning.

Crowley sat up and looked at Aziraphale. He had that concerned furrow between his brows.

“Actually, yes,” he tried, but stalled on the next sentence. Aziraphale waited patiently.

Crowley inhaled a breath he didn’t need. “The world almost ended.”

“Yes, it did,” Aziraphale prompted.

“And here we are.” Crowley looked back down at the table. “Same as always.”

Aziraphale leaned forward and rested a reassuring hand on one of Crowley’s crossed arms. “Yes, same as always. Nothing’s changed.”

Aziraphale was missing the point.

“Well, what if I _ want _ it to change?” He burst out, shoving away from the table. “It’s always this, you and me. Just _ this_.” Crowley waved his arms between them.

Aziraphale looked _ hurt_. Well, hurt but trying to hide it. Somewhat succeeding. He was missing the _ point_. He thought - Crowley didn’t know _ what _ he thought.

He played through what he said again and found some fairly terrible ways in which it could be construed.

Before Crowley could say anything, Aziraphale stood, gathered their mugs and placed them in the sink. “Well, if you wanted some time to yourself, you really had to just _ say so_.”

Crowley knew, objectively, how his words sounded, but he still couldn’t believe Aziraphale thought they could possibly mean that. He sat there, dumbfounded at their collective, truly incredible mental density.

“It’s a big world,” Aziraphale continued, haughty and offended. “You don’t have to hang around Soho all the time.”

“Angel.” Crowley followed him to the front of the shop.

“I really _ must _ be opening up now,” was his only response.

“_Aziraphale_.”

That got his attention, but only slightly. He half turned back to face Crowley.

“I didn’t mean it like that.”

“Oh? How _ did _ you mean it, then?” He asked, and Crowley could see under the standoffishness that Aziraphale was bracing himself for rejection.

It was an awful thing to see.

He forced it all out of his mouth at once. “I don’t want time to _ myself_, angel. I want time with _ you_.”

Well, half of it.

“You _ have _ time with me,” Aziraphale answered, quietly. “You’ve always had.”

Crowley tried again.

“Do you remember that party? Back in 1953?” He asked, grasping at straws for the best way to get this across, and quickly running out of them.

Aziraphale blinked at him, and for once Crowley could not read him. He was more guarded now than he’d been in decades. Centuries.

“We were drunk. Fantastically drunk. It was raining. I tried something.” Crowley sounded _ fantastically _desperate.

Aziraphale looked down at his shoes, eyes widening. “Oh. _ That _party. Yes.”

Crowley had no idea, with that reaction, where this was going or how it was going to end, but he’d started it now. Might as well finish it up.

“I want that. I want it to change to _ that_.”

“_Oh_.”

Crowley stood there, staring at Aziraphale.

“Do you, um. Now?” Aziraphale sounded _ painfully _ unsure.

Crowley shrank back. “Angel, if you don’t -” he started. _ Challenge the status quo_, his four-in-the-morning-self had said, like an idiot. _ You just did in the biggest way possible_.

He’d known this would be a terrible idea. He’d thought so, at around 4:13 in the morning.

“_I do! _ ” Aziraphale almost shouted at him, then collected himself. “Um. I do. Just. What do you mean by it, can I ask? What do you mean _ exactly? _”

_ Oh_.

Crowley should have known he’d need to spell it out further. They were both terrible with this. And terrified. It’d been 6000 years of the same. It wasn’t going to change the way Crowley wanted it to. His ideal, impossible way had contained no words and a time skip to some Indeterminate Future where this conversation had already happened. His actually _ attainable _ ideal way included the least amount of words possible, so he could save them for another Indeterminate Future where he was better at saying them.

It looked like he’d be saying them now.

“I mean, that. That _ I_.” He ran his hands down his face. He hadn’t prepared at all. He should have. He should have used note cards. “We’ve spent 6000 years together. You’ve been the only constant in my entire existence. And I want to spend the next 6000 years, and the next, with you. As a constant. But I want you to know what it means.”

When Crowley dared to glance at Aziraphale's face, Aziraphale looked incredibly hopeful. The way someone looked when they’re getting what they’ve wanted for a very long time, something they hadn’t really allowed themselves to want for even longer.

Crowley let that yank him forward.

“I love you.”

_ Finally_.

Crowley had said it, and now he wanted to slither behind a bookshelf.

Aziraphale rushed to him, immediately. “You do?” He asked, eyes wild.

Crowley looked at his shoes. “_Angel_,” he practically whined. “I just said it, didn’t I?”

“_Say it again, Crowley_.” Aziraphale had grabbed his hand, and was squeezing it rather tightly.

“I love you,” Crowley said to the floorboards. “I do.”

Aziraphale’s answering smile was truly what would be described as _ divine_, when Crowley finally had the nerve to look at it. It was everything he’d ever want to see, for the rest of forever.

“I do believe I’ve loved you for a very long time,” he told Crowley, softly. Sweet like the tea he made.

It was getting easier to look at him. Crowley started to smile. A small, wiggling thing. “Yeah?”

“Yes.”

“Me too, I think.”

Aziraphale took his other hand, limp at his side. “Do you think we would have said anything, if there hadn’t almost been an apocalypse?”

“Not sure. Maybe eventually.” Maybe never, his brain supplied. That was the most likely.

“Eventually sounds like an awful long time.” Aziraphale seemed to agree on the _ never _ , and disliked that he did. “I think I like _ now_, much better.”

“Another 6000 years too long for you, angel?” Crowley was grinning, now. “You did tell me to slow down, once.”

Aziraphale poked him in the side, but he couldn’t stop smiling either. “Don’t you start. We were having something.”

“Can I have something else?” Crowley disentangled their hands to wrap his arms loosely around Aziraphale’s waist.

Aziraphale let himself be pulled closer. He rested his hands on Crowley’s chest. “Oh?”

“Yeah. Something from 1953.”

He hummed. His hands were warm through Crowley’s clothes. “I liked that party.”

“I know you did, angel.”

“You did too.” Aziraphale looked at him from under his lashes, fingers playing with Crowley's collar.

“Yes,” Crowley nodded, and tried to keep his legs from giving out. “I did.”

A bit of caution swept across Aziraphale’s face, and he was nervous again. “I liked what you did after, too. I did,” he rambled, fast. “I did. I just never told you. I never told you a lot of things.”

Crowley lifted a hand to twist a finger in one of his curls, like he’d done that night. He was nervous too. What an utterly _ human _ set of circumstances, he thought to himself, out of nowhere.

But humans, his thoughts echoed, still might be onto something, with all of this.

“Can I try again?” He asked, voice small, hopeful.

Aziraphale nodded, just nearing emphatic. “I’d like that very much.”

Crowley grinned, again, and that made it hard to do what he’d been planning, but he tried. He tried, and it was wonderful. It was _ wonderful_.

Crowley kissed him and Aziraphale clutched at his shoulders, smiled into it like Crowley was, and it was soft and indescribable and so full of love Crowley wasn’t sure what to do with it.

_ Ineffable_, popped into his head, and he almost laughed.

It felt like home. It felt like Eternity. The best kind of Eternity, with just his angel, and no _ Sound of Music. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so so much to everyone who kept reading week to week! Your comments mean the world, and reading them every chapter brought such a huge smile to my face. I had a lot of fun writing this story, and I'm glad you all had a lot of fun reading it.


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